


Juno Steel and the King's Wraith

by goodxgirl92



Series: The World's More Full of Weeping [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Cecil Kanagawa is super creepy, Detective Noir, Gen, Ghosts, Horror Elements, M/M, The Kanagawa Family - Freeform, Unseelie Fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12554052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodxgirl92/pseuds/goodxgirl92
Summary: In Hyperion City people turn up dead every day.Croesus Kanagawa's murder should be a case of same old same old for Detective Juno Steel; but between the new partner he's been assigned, the labyrinthine corridors of Kanagawa Manor, and the sense that there is something more then your average murderer hiding in the halls, he's starting to wonder if he's going to make it out alive or if he's even meant to.(Fae!AU Juno Steel)





	1. Chapter One

## Chapter One

Stories are magic. They might not seem like it at first; just strings of words tied together to tell you about a series of events that happened and sometimes they’re true and sometimes they aren’t. But the thing is, they have rules.

A good story has to make sense.

Beginning. Middle. End.

Doesn’t have to be happy or fair but we don’t compromise on the ‘making sense’ part too easily. The more sense a story makes, the more we can see how one thing led to another, how all the little changes occurred, the more we like it and the longer it lasts. Everything gets tied up in a bow by the end because if it isn’t then the story isn’t over yet, is it?

They tell you that art imitates life but truth is stranger than fiction. That’s because unlike art, life has never had any obligation to make sense. It just happens.

The thing is, we as a people aren’t a fan of that. We desperately want our world, want our lives to make sense, so we start telling stories. We take a chaotic universe where shit just happens sometimes because fuck you, that’s why, and we make sense of it the best we can. We turn chaos into order and mark it with shit like birthdays and anniversaries and weekends. We track time and create scripts and civilization because if rules exist, if we give the story structure, then we can tell ourselves that everything has a point.

That there can be such a thing as a happy ending.

It might seem simple when you’re sitting around a campfire trying to scare the piss out of your friends or whispering bedtime stories under the covers to your twin or reading the cheesy romance novel your secretary left half open on her desk but turning chaos into order, making you think that the world might actually make sense? Might be okay? That’s goddamn magic.

Kind of a shame I stopped believing in magic a long time ago.

* * *

“...The thing is Juno, most people don’t hear ‘death threat written in blood’ and immediately go ‘job opportunity.” Even after all these years, Sasha still sounded the same,eternally on the edge of being absolutely done with him, but it just made Juno almost smile. Hearing her complain about his supposed lack of self-preservation instincts made him downright nostalgic.

“You keep that up, Sasha, and I might just think you care about me.” He said, taking his gun out of the safe and securing it in his holster.

He could feel the eyeroll through the phone. “I’ve sent one of our best agents to meet up with you at that little hole in the wall you call an office. Worked with him a couple of times, he’s an expert in his field.”

“Homicide?”

“No; the supernatural and folklore. The Mask of Grimpoteuthis is an ancient relic that dates back to…”

“I watched the documentary.” Juno said, trying to locate a couple of extra clips for his gun. Rita had refused to unlock the door, insisting that they ‘just had to watch it Mistah Steel’, and made him sit for all three hours of it.

“If you aren’t going to take this seriously I can reiterate the offer to take you into protective custody until this is solved.” Her voice made January out in the Barrens seem warm.

“Nah, I’d go stir crazy within a week in the little corner of nowhere your department would dump me in. Get real messy.”

Her frustrated sigh was audible and Juno sighed too. “Sasha, I swore I’d never get within a hundred feet of Kanagawa Manor after what happened last time.” He still got the creeps thinking about it actually. “And yet here I am, willing to  walk back into what is honestly a pit of snakes. Crazy snakes. Crazy snakes that I think wonder what I would taste like served with a whiskey chaser.”

She snorted at that. “Please, who needs the whiskey. I’m sure you’ve practically marinated yourself in it already.”

Juno smiled. “Great to know how much you care Sash.”

The door to his desk slid closed as he checked over what he had, including the case print-outs that he had had Rita take care of. He would look over them again on his way to the Kanagawa’s right after he hung up.

“...so Agent Glass will meet you at your office, I got an ETA from him a little while ago. Try not to cause too much trouble for the man.”

Juno bit his lip and cursed under his breath when he looked out the window and saw a nondescript dark sedan idling in front of the building. “Yeah, yeah. See you in another fifteen years Sasha.”

He heard her make a familiar noise, one that he’d never really managed to figure out. “Good-bye Juno. Don’t die.”

There was a click of the phone hanging up and Juno shoved it in his pocket. Outside he faintly heard the elevator ding and he cursed again, opening the window that led out to the fire escape.

“...llo, I’m here to see Detective Steel.” The voice floating in from reception was smooth and Juno stuck his leg out the window, grabbing onto the thin metal railing to keep his balance as he headed out. Rita was distracting him, trying to put him off like a good secretary. “And aren’t you just a jewel upon the heavens. Call me Agent Glass.” There was the sound of giggling? Then a knock on the door, which creaked open. “Detective Steel? Are you in here?” And then he whacked his head against the window frame. He nearly fell over when the door opened all the way.

It wasn’t the best way to make a first impression, but if he was being honest with himself he had made worse ones.

The man standing in the doorway looked slightly puzzled. “...are you trying to climb out that window?” He asked and Juno smiled crookedly.

“I would say I was succeeding.” Maybe not, he was pretty sure the bump on his forehead was going to bruise, but hey, if you acted like everything was on purpose then people would stop questioning it. Especially if you ignored the questions.

“How fun. I’ve never been to Hyperion City before,” The man, had to be Agent Glass, took a few steps forward. “You’ll have to show me all your customs. I had heard they do things different here. Is there room in that window for two?”

He was… his face was lean but soft with a cherub’s smile and a fox's teeth. He looked like he was happy to see him and would be just as happy to kill him if push came to shove. It… wasn’t unpleasant all things considered.

Something about him, Juno couldn’t put a finger on what, seemed… not familiar but something like it. Like remembering a dream within another dream.

The feeling of Agent Glass’s hand was solid and real by comparison. Juno could feel the calluses formed from years of work, nimble fingers that belied the strength that Juno imagined they could exert. His lips parted, showing another flash of pearly white, sharp teeth. Juno rubbed the side of his head, taking a momentary assessment of it before deciding that it would be fine. It hurt a bit but it was ignorable. Agent Glass was looking around the room, his dark eyes lighting up with a spark of… something. The computer screen still had all the files open including the pictures and he turned, leaning on the desk to get a better look.

Juno didn’t know why, he didn’t want to look at them too long and his name was written all over them. “When Agent Wire told me about it, well the screenshots I got on my flight in really don’t do it justice.”  He said, glancing back at Juno.

“Agent Glass right?” Juno said with a sigh.

Glass smiled and turned around fully. “Only to my mother, Detective Steel. You can call me Rex.”

He put his hand out for a proper handshake but Juno turned, adjusting his hat. “Yeah, I’m gonna pass. Rita.” He paused when she didn’t respond. “Rita!”

“Oh, if you’re calling for your secretary then she’s been taken care of.” Juno’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Agent Rex Glass.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He looked somewhat puzzled, manicured brows drawing together, head tilting ever slightly to the side. “Dealt with? Accounted for? I can go on for awhile, I have euphemisms to spare.” He almost smiled and Juno took a step forward, jabbing a finger towards him before going to slam the door open.

“I swear if you’ve laid a finger on her I’ll...!” The door banged against the wall and he saw Rita, sitting in the front desk where she always sat, behind three separate screens, two mice, a keyboard and a laptop precariously balanced on the edge of the desk next to some novelty coffee cup that was filled with whatever tea of the month she was trying to push on him.

She was a little flushed but none the worse for wear and as he felt Agent Glass come up behind him she giggled and gave a little wave. “Honestly Detective Steel, all I did was talk to her the right way.” His voice was a hot whisper in his ear and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck, on his arm standing up to attention. “Everyone has a right way, you know.”

There was a smell in the air, the hint of something spicy, exotic, almost familiar but not.

“Hello Agent Glass~” She warbled and Juno felt the urge to cough, carefully walking out of his office.

He was not blushing.

“Okay, you’re good. I’ll call you if I need you to bail me out of jail, keep doing research for that divorce case we took last week and don’t get caught up watching your shows.”

Her giggly smile turned into a pout. “But Mistah Steel it's the season finale tonight and they’re interviewing the last guy to leave before and if I wait to watch it Franny’s going to spoil everything!”

“I don’t pay you to watch TV!” He called back over his shoulder as he pressed the button to the elevator, Agent Glass still following close behind like he thought the second he got out of sight he was going to pull a runner.

Of course he would, but that wasn’t his business.

And… he could hear the theme music of Rita’s favorite soap coming on. If she was going to openly ignore his rules the least she could do was put her headphones on.

Agent Glass stepped into the elevator next to him, still smiling. “Hopefully I’ll find our right way soon Detective.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just talking to your colleague on the phone.” And now he was stuck with him because he couldn’t climb out a goddamn window right.

“Agent Wire? Excellent, perhaps you could catch me up on the case over dinner. Introductions make me peckish and it would be just a dream to get a briefing on things from someone who knows the current lay of the land.” His eyes glittered and Juno looked away, unsure of when he had started looking into them.

“Can’t. I’m in a hurry, a mummy wants me dead or something.” He hated weird cases and he really wished they wouldn’t land on his lap. Give him finding lost jewelry or catching a cheating spouse any day of the week.

“You don’t sound particularly concerned.” Agent Glass said as the elevator slowly descended to the ground floor, stopping with a shaky jerk at the bottom. He stepped forward, opening the door for him. “Allow me.”

Juno rolled his eyes. “A lot of people want me dead, I’m more concerned about the ones who are still breathing then some ghost story about a death mask. You’re a real gentleman huh? I can get that myself you know.”

Agent Glass paused for a moment, then smiled as they walked out to the vehicle that was waiting for them by the curb. He did the same with the car door. “Oh no I insist. Chivalry runs in the bloodline you know. ‘Show yourself through deeds, not words’ mother always said.” He waited until Juno was in the car before closing the door and getting in on the other side. “If you aren’t worried about the Mask,”

“I’m not.”

“Well then, perhaps you’ve been misinformed. Grim’s Mask is capable of forming a construct of blood, viscera, and bone and having it drag its victim into an unending purgatorial state of pain and suffering. I’ve heard it is quite… something.” The man sounded almost excited to be talking about it. Maybe the chance to get to talk about it to someone new? Juno didn’t know, sliding into the back of the car while Agent Glass gave the man in front instructions of where to go next.

They sat in silence for a long moment, the passing city lights throwing Agent Glass’s face into profile, lit from orange street lamps and the flash of brightly colored neon. Juno watched him out of the corner of his eye, wondering what would have happened if he had managed to crawl out the window before he had come into his office.

(In weeks to come, months to come he would wonder that a lot)

The smell was back, stronger this time in the cramped backseat of the sedan. It made it hard to think straight as he kept going back to that. He took a breath in through his mouth, trying to get back on topic, when Agent Glass looked over at him and rather than finding himself actually staring at him he cleared his throat and broke the silence. “What do you know about the Kanagawas?”

Simple enough question.

Glass looked like he was pondering something heavy before he answered. “Well, I know the basics of course. All textbook. Stars of the screen by day, kings of the underworld,” His mouth quirked ever so slightly, caught by a passing streetlight that made him gleam “by night. But of course; you've worked for them before and would know much better than I. Regale me detective, tales from the ground.”

Sasha must have told him about that. His dealings with the Kanagawas… well maybe they weren’t entirely low profile, but he tried not to get his name or face actively associated with them. A PI’s best credentials were his discretion and the Kanagawa family was anything but discrete.

“Stars and kings, not so much lately.” Juno said, tapping his finger on the side of the door. “Croesus has had a couple, well more than a couple of duds and he started ruining his own rep. Making bad business decisions” He gave a crooked grin. “Giving to charity and the like. That and he’s started taking ideas from anyone who can string two words together.”

The car turned up, shady looking storefronts and slumping apartment buildings being exchanged for glass and steel skyscrapers, gleaming boutiques, and bars that were just starting to buzz. “So, he’s going soft?” Glass asked.

Juno looked to one side, phantom aches and pains throbbing at the question. “Lost his edge I guess. Dunno if I would say soft. He didn’t seem that soft the last time I saw him.”

He was still paying off the hospital bills from that incident even if it was two years ago.

Even from here Juno could see the Manor. It was pretty easy to find. The trick was to look at the skyline find the brightest point… then to look past it to the brighter point trying to hide behind it. It kind of hurt to look at directly. “So, how did a dame like you get involved with such a family?”

Guess Sasha hadn’t told Glass everything. Maybe she didn’t know, sometimes Juno wondered himself how he had gotten caught up with them but…

“Cass and I, Cassandra Kanagawa used to be old drinking buddies after I… left the HCPD.” He didn’t elaborate and Glass didn’t pry into that comment which he sort of appreciated. “And I saved Cecil’s hide. Well, most of it. He bounced back.” The whole ‘rescue job’ had been a shit show and Juno didn’t remember most of it clearly. He still didn’t know what kind of a mickey he’d been slipped but the most he could remember about getting Cecil out had been the stench of blood, trying to turn his favorite coat into a tourniquet and annoyance at being called ‘June-bug’.

The lights of the city seemed to blur by like something out of a dream. “After that… well I don’t take to people trying to stiff me on my bill and Croesus thought he was above all of that. Apparently I should have been happy with his ‘good will”  He put finger quotes over the word. The good will of a man like Croesus Kanagawa didn’t mean much, dead or alive.

Even dead he was promising to be more trouble than a paycheck was worth but Juno had rent, expenses, and Rita’s salary to pay at the end of the month and at least Min Kanagawa had a better reputation for paying on time than her late husband did.

He really hoped she hadn’t been the one to actually kill him.

If he accused her he doubted he’d ever get paid.

That of course was a problem for future Juno, the sucker.

“I insisted on getting paid.” He said and Glass nodded.

“Obviously. Nothing in this life is free.” He was smiling but it wasn’t mocking. Like Juno was in the right for expecting, demanding to get paid.

“We argued. Beat the shit out of me, said if I ever turned up here again he’d kill me and use me to fertilize his garden. Always thought if my name and a shit-ton of blood were going to end up involved at the Manor…” He trailed off and that seemed like enough for Glass. The large brass gates of the Kanagawa compound loomed before them and the Manor itself lay beyond, blocking out the night sky and anything behind it.

It still looked like something out of a horror movie, a huge structure that looked like someone had slammed a haunted house and a modernist nightmare together and had stuck cameras and lights on every available corner.

The driveway was long and Juno looked away from the looming house, mostly to save his eyesight. “And the curse?” Glass asked and Juno let out a snort.

“As I said earlier, no such thing. It's a non-starter. A play by the _actual_ killer to draw our attention away from them.” He looked at him as the car came up around the drive. “A mask, no matter how old can’t kill someone. Whoever wore it is dead and gone and if dead people could try and kill you I would be in a lot more shit then I already am.”

He was looking at him in a way that could make a lady’s skin prickle when the car parked and the door opened to let them both out. “You don’t believe in magic?”

That shouldn’t have felt like a loaded question. “No.” Juno said firmly, trying not to feel the instinctive pull of nervousness you felt when you were surrounded by bristling security guards who all reminded you of just how fragile human bone, specifically your human bones were. He didn’t think any of them were under six foot. Juno wondered what Min was putting in the food to get them to all get so tall. Glass seemed a little pale as well but that might have just been the lighting as they weren’t so much ushered inside as borderline picked up and passed along like packages down a line.

Juno fixed his trenchcoat and he watched Glass smooth his hair back out of the corner of his eye and some part of him wondered… He blinked and Glass cleared his throat, seemingly off-balance.

“I couldn’t help but notice, did all of those nametags say ‘Kanagawa’?”

Juno nodded. “Yeah. They like keeping it in the family, one way or another. Fuck knows how they’re all related but the whole family breeds like rabbits and any of them who survive to adulthood are tough, clever, and would sell your parts wholesale for one corn chip.” He stopped for a moment. “Or try to film it and call it a documentary on organ harvesting.”

“There were so many of them.”

Juno shook his head. “Nah, they’re just good at surrounding you.” He’d only counted six but it had felt like more.

Someone should have come out to meet them. He looked around the echoing entrance hall and didn’t bother even thinking about trying the labyrinthine hallways that led off into the rest of the building. He had nearly gotten lost the last time he had been here and he’d been escorted the entire time. No way he was repeating the experience, not at night, not when Croesus had been murdered in his high security personal trophy room.

Everything was brightly lit; all the better for the strategically placed cameras to film but the light seemed… wrong now that he was inside. Like the shadows in the room were wrong, the light inside was not as bright as it looked from the outside.

He turned around, trying to keep an eye out for whoever was supposed to come for them when he saw Glass looking at the paintings on the wall, the strange ones that he never looked at for too long. They were postmodernist or something but he always had the impression that he was looking at a carrion field and it made him kind of queasy.

It really wasn’t his thing anyways. He was more of a ‘Dogs Playing Poker’ kind of lady.

How had someone gotten into the Manor to kill Croesus? The entire place was Fort Knox, had better security than any of the jails in the city asides from maybe the Fortezza. Even with permission to be here outsiders weren’t welcome for long on the family property. He felt watched and it wasn’t just the cameras that were filming his every movement.

_...j...o...l…_

“You know detective, magic appears in practically every culture on Earth?” Glass said, looking up at him from the statue he had been looking at. “There must be a reason for that.”

“Yeah, people like the idea that they can change the world just by wishing really hard.” Juno said, eyes still flicking around the room. “Sounds human to me.”

“That’s a cynical viewpoint to take.” “Well life sucks and then you die.”

_….no….ste…_

Someone should have been here by now. Juno looked around, marking the locations of the security cameras that were strategically positioned to catch almost every possible angle in the room. This _really_ had all the earmarks of a trap and if ghosts were real he was going to haunt the shit out of Sasha.

And there was something.. He wasn’t the only one hearing it, he saw Glass turning his head a couple of times when he thought he heard something. “You know detective you never explained how you got involved in any of this. Why the killer wrote your name on the wall.”

_Juno Steel… Juno Steel…_

That was officially creeping him out. Juno grabbed for his sidearm, clicking the safety off. He saw Agent Glass reach for something at his belt and hell, maybe he was crazy for feeling reassured by that. “In a minute.” He muttered under his breath.

“Oh, I think we have time.” Agent Glass said, seemingly unconcerned. “Come on detective, sate my curiosity. Why did the curse choose you?” He didn’t snap that curses weren’t real. Agent Glass’s eyes were glittering with amusement and there was something about it…

“Because I gave him the idea for the show.” He paused, letting out a breath. “Apparently.”

Glass’s head tilted to the side. “And that’s why?”

Agent Glass raised an eyebrow and Juno sighed. “After I saved his son but before he kicked my teeth in he asked me what kind of show Juno Steel watched. I told him ‘whatever my secretary leaves on’” It was true. His apartment didn’t even have a TV, he’d never bothered buying one. “But when he didn’t take that for an answer and he _still_ hadn’t paid me three weeks later… I told him I would pay him a thousand dollars to watch him dig a deep, deep hole and bury himself in it.”

“And that has to do with the Mask…?”

Juno shoulders slumped. “That was how he found it. After he beat the hell out of me he grabbed a camera crew, went out to the Barrens… dug a deep deep hole, jumped in and found the tomb.” He lifted his gun up, looking at the catwalk-style balcony above the entry hall. The shadows up there were the only ones that could hide a person and it had to be a person making that noise. “First special they’ve made in over a year that made any money, even if he did basically destroy a couple million dollars of priceless artifacts crashing over them to get it.”

The downtown studio was still occasionally besieged by protesters from the nearby university, calling the company out for the callous destruction of a historic site.

Whose history no one knew, the tomb predated any known civilization ancient or otherwise in the area. Just a creepy as fuck tomb filled with strange objects and tapestries. It had since been taken over by some private academic collective but not before the Kanagawas had sold most of the contents off.

“ _Juno Steel… Defiler of the Sacred Resting Place….”_ The ‘ghost’ was getting annoyed with them for talking it seemed. _“For your sins you will die screaming, screaming forever!”_

What else was new? “Buy me a drink first.” He said, his voice dry as dust.

“Detective,” Agent Glass said, looking somewhat… squirmy “Perhaps we don’t antagonize the angry demon king? I think the death aspect might be non-negotiable but perhaps you might get parole from some of the eternal torment if you... “

He had never been one to comply or make things easy for anyone. Not even some ghost or…

Juno frowned, glancing at Agent Glass who was still looking around the room as the lights began to flicker ominously. This was a little too… weird. _“You’re next Juno Steel!”_ The voice echoed through the large entryway but Juno just kept looking up at the catwalk. _“Repent of your sins and you might be shown some mercy.”_

“Dead is dead.” Juno replied, eyes narrowing.

“From what I’ve heard Grim’s Mask leaves its victim in a semi-conscious state of, as I said eternal torment and suffering.”

Juno flicked his eyes back towards him, somewhat annoyed. “You aren’t helping.” He bit out and Glass held up one hand, the other still just out of sight on his belt.

And really, draw your weapon or not but make a decision one way or another. “All I’m saying is…” He gestured to the room where glowing balls of sickly blue light had appeared, flickering in and out like the lights.

“Right.” He finally said. His chin jerked up. “Anything in particular you want me to confess, cause if you want me to cover everything we will be here for an eternity.”

If he wasn’t mistaken he could have sworn he heard a groan.

Now the lights flickered again, stronger this time and it left the room in the glow of those weird blue lights. _“Regrets of the past come home to haunt you. Cutting yourself off from friends… now turn around”_ He could see Glass muttering ‘incredible’ under his breath, something about ghosts and the effect of unfinished business but Juno was a little busy going along with the little game. “And that haircut, I mean what were you thinking?” And if he wasn’t sure before he certainly was now. He rolled his eyes and heard a burst of giggling as the lights returned to normal.

“Cass, this stopped being funny ten minutes ago.”

“I beg to differ.” Cassandra Kanagawa stepped forward a wide smile cracking her beautiful face.

Cass had a style all her own. Bleached bone white hair and purposefully ripped and studded clothes, there might have been a hundred wannabes up and down the coast who rocked the look but Cass had been the one to get it copyrighted and turned into a label and it was very profitable.

She came down the stairs, still holding the hand held device that she must have used to change her voice and everything else. “Your special effects are getting better.” He said, letting her give him a quick hug.

Then she punched him on the arm. Hard.

“You haven’t said a word to me in nearly two years asshole.” Cass’s eyes weren’t openly upset but he had long since learned not to trust any of her visual cues for how she felt. A life onscreen meant constantly acting.

“Well drinking with you gets hard on the budget and you were here when your father issued the whole ultimatum thingy.”

Her smile came back. “Yeah, I was. And you should be thanking me. Cecil tried to steal the tooth that dad punched out. Lord knows what he would have done with it.”

Sounded like Cecil.

Agent Glass cleared his throat, reaching over to introduce himself. “Agent Glass, Dark Matters sent me over to investigate your father’s death.” He went on a little spiel with appropriate hand flourishes describing degrees in folklore, myths & ancient history as well as one in criminal forensics.

“Right. You’ve got a job to do then.” She looked at Juno. “Sure I can’t drag you out on the town with me before Min shows up?”

“Where is Mrs. Kanagawa by the way? I expected her to meet us at the door.” Glass said and Juno admitted he was curious as well. Min was good at delegating but this was the kind of situation she would think deserved the ‘personal touch’.

Cass raised an eyebrow. “You kidding? She’s got so much work to do I don’t think I’m going to see her for another three days. There’s the lawyers and the event planners for the funeral, the writers, the producers….”

Agent Glass’s mouth opened, then closed in confusion. “Producers?”

She nodded. “Yeah, well job isn’t done until there’s a three hour Kanagawa special about the whole thing. Even in death dad’s got to make money for the family.” Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “Just like he would have wanted.”

The thing was, he liked Cass. She was a lot of fun and he probably owed her for not letting Cecil get his tooth. He might not believe in magic but he was reasonably to attached to his body parts and he figured Cecil getting away with one of them would just wet his appetite for more but the thing he had to remind himself was that she was a Kanagawa, that she had used bribes and lawsuits to patent a look that any kid with access to a thrift shop, hair dye, and a pair of scissors could come up with and that ultimately, she was a businesswoman.

In Hyperion City you couldn’t trust a businessman, especially not one that you liked.

The manor’s hallways were as maze-like as he remembered. He used to swear that they moved when he wasn’t looking but Cass walked through them, confident as ever.

Agent Glass stepped forward to open the door with a sly sort of grin. “After you of course.” Cass looked at him sidelong but shook her head leading them down another long hallway. Paintings lined the wall, strategically lit and most of them gave Juno the same uneasy feeling that the one in the entryway did.

It was all abstract, lines and colors that seemed to swim before his vision but something about them; something about how the light hit it…. He wasn’t sure and he tried to avoid looking at them for too long though Agent Glass seemed fascinated. Didn’t stop but he sure looked.

Portraits were worse but Juno figured the eyes on those really were moving and watching them.

He tried not to look behind them, best not to let Cass get out of sight and half-listened as Glass expounded upon some of the cities he had visited over the course of his career. “...of course Los Angeles in the summer is truly something but it wreaks hell on your make-up.” He laughed at that and Cass glanced back at Juno but nodded in agreement when they came to the door and he stepped ahead to open it again.

“Got a real gentleman on your hands huh Juno?” He rolled his eyes, then blinked a couple of times once they entered Croesus’s trophy room. He heard a small gasp as Glass turned in a circle.

“Incredible…”

Incredible was not the word Juno would have used. Every square inch of wall was covered in the exact same type of art. Death masks. From every culture, every corner of the globe if it had been pasted on a dead person’s face at some point it was hanging on the walls in this room. There were more in display cases, the really old, fragile, and rare ones. There were also sarcophagi, a couple of propped up mummies and what appeared to be the facade of a full-sized mausoleum or crypt against one wall. It creeped him the hell out.

Glass seemed impressed though. “A shrine of death… perhaps this is truly where he wanted to die in the end.” He mused, tapping a finger against his cheek. Juno didn’t think the sharp black manicure was Dark Matter regulation but he didn’t think anyone would say anything to Glass. “Surrounded by all of his prizes and treasures… what do you think my dear detective?”

“I don’t think Croesus planned to die at all.” He said, Cass having turned her back to talk to a besuited young woman (also with a Kanagawa nametag) about… something. He couldn’t make out what.

“Oh? Where do you think you’ll die?”

“Cold ditch, like everyone else.”

This seemed to take him aback for a moment before he recovered. “Oh dream a little detective. You know what they say ‘shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars’” His teeth glinted in the gallery lighting.

“And die horrible death either way. I hear explosive decompression hurts like a bitch.” Juno cocked his head to the side. "How about I upgrade to a warm ditch. _Just_ for you." 

He could see Glass shaking his head out of the corner of his eye. “There isn’t a romantic bone in your body is there?”

He raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “I dunno. Maybe it was in the tooth that Croesus knocked out. Cass, did that tooth look romantic to you?”

She was still deep in conversation with the woman but she gave him the finger without turning around and he shook his head.

The crime scene as it were had been cordoned off using bright red tape that film crews used to keep the public out. Juno wondered if the cops had even been called or if the whole thing had gone straight up the ladder to Dark Matters and to him. It was a little confusing, there was no way they didn’t have half the HCPD bought off and dealing with them had to be cheaper than bribing a Dark Matters agent.

Him they’d just throw off a bridge somewhere if it came down to it.

Maybe he shouldn’t have taken the job, whether or not Croesus was dead. There were still plenty of people in this building who were… less than ambivalent regarding how long he kept breathing. Even the ones who weren’t openly up to stabbing him didn’t necessarily have plans that he’d agree with.

“Shall we get started? You are the detective.” Agent Glass gestured towards the body, still slumped below the wall where ‘You’re next Juno Steel’ was written in blood that was already starting to dry and peel.

He walked over and remembered the thing that had made him the laughingstock of the Academy.

It wasn’t that he had a weak stomach, he had grown up seeing more than the occasional junkie in a ditch and he’d had been on the force for years before things had gone south but he still got a little… well more than a little nauseous at a grisly scene and Juno didn’t think it could get much grislier than the state Croesus Kanagawa currently found himself in.

The photos Sasha had sent… did not do it justice.

Grim’s Mask was clutched around his head… what was left of his head like it had been molded to his face. It hadn’t been made for his face and Juno could see bits of white and blood and some kind of slime squishing out from the mask. Brain matter and… pulp was seeping on to the floor in a sick puddle. Something had caved in his chest and… no.

“Oh god move him before he pukes all over the display case!” Cass yelled and Agent Glass put a hand on his shoulder. “It’d cost a mint to get out.”

Juno turned away and took a couple of breaths in and out through his mouth. “Gonna… be… paying a lot already Cass.” He panted. He wondered if you could even get that much blood out of something. It seemed like it would… stain or something. She just shook her head, not seeming particularly concerned by the corpse.

“Nah, that’s meant to get blood on it. Dad put in the best security money can buy.” She pressed a couple of buttons and a pad slid out from behind a panel.

“The case only opens for his DNA.” Glass surmised. “Yeah, and well some of mine. Or Cecil’s. Two door release, make sure no one could hold him hostage.” She and Glass seemed to share a long look at that. She broke away after a moment and giggled looking at him. “You still aren’t any good with gore huh?”

“Fuck off Cass.” Juno said, wiping his face.

She snickered a bit more than pointed her thumb at Glass. “You’ve got forensics right? You take care of it and I’ll take this lump out of your way so he doesn’t barf all over the crime scene.”

Glass smiled that fox’s smile again that made his stomach do... unrelated things.

Cass ushered him out of the way, brushing her hair away from her face. “I can call someone to get you like water or whiskey or something.” She offered and it sounded sincere. Juno shook his head.

“Nah, I’m fine.” He peered around her to where Agent Glass was ducking under the tape with bright excitement on his face as he approached the mask. “Fascinating!” He exclaimed. “It seems to have made itself apart of his flesh. I’m sure there’s a mechanism here somewhere to get it to disengage….” There was a noise like a wet accordion and Juno rapidly looked away.

“You are so green right now.” Cass said.

“ _You_ don’t have to sound so delighted” He said in response and she just cackled. He rubbed his face, resolving to do his best to ignore what was going on on the other side of the room and looked at her properly.

After a moment she shifted. “What?” “You don’t seem all that upset about… that.” He made a vague gesture and she looked away for half a second. “You know dad, it was bound to happen sometime.” She said, not meeting his eyes. “Whoever did it had a good reason… I’m sure.” People who went to the trouble of gruesome, bloody murder did usually think it was justified. Croesus’s death had taken effort and effort took passion. You didn’t smash someone’s head inside something until their head cracked like a melon on a lark or even on payroll.

You did it because you _hated_ them.

Didn’t do much to narrow the list in this case.

She kept looking behind her. Not at the crime scene, but at the case itself. “So, you and the old man haven’t been getting along lately?” He asked and she started a little. “Well, you know me Juno. Dad was….” She trailed off for a minute. “Much more interested in Cecil’s ideas for shows than mine. You know, I want to bring some actual culture to our station and Cecil’s pumping out his tenth idea for a show that’s all flair and no substance unless you count all the extra man hours that have to be put in so no one _actually_ dies onscreen.” The frustration poured off her like the cheap mall fountains that he and his friends used to climb into, shoving the change into their pockets until they had enough to buy something at the food court. “I want to go out and show how people live. Travel to every corner of the world, talk to people and show how they…” He had heard it before, usually over a couple of glasses of good scotch or bad wine.

The idea wasn’t bad and he figured it would garner interest. There were easily a couple dozen shows on the Travel Channel that proved that and her passion was to be admired but… Cecil’s reality shows were guaranteed to turn a profit and a good one and even with all the effort put in to it to as Cass said, prevent actual death it was still cheaper then flying her around the globe.

Her hair was practically bristling as she talked about it and the corner of his mouth twitched a little. “He never listened to me. Not really but… lately, the last meeting we had.” Her eyes seemed a little softer. “He said he would look it over and talk to some of the executives about it. Over Cecil’s idea.”

She took a breath. “It's easier to pretend he screwed me over. He would have, I know he would have and he’s screwed everyone else over so… what does it matter?”

But it did matter.

“Listen Cass, if you’re feeding me something… I know you two didn’t get along and you had to be here to get that case open so that mask could be used to do…. That.” He risked a quick look over to where he heard something like… sawing? Yeah, wasn’t touching that with a ten foot pole.

She looked taken aback. “No, Juno I am telling you the truth. I didn’t open that case last night. I didn’t murder my dad.” She reached into her bag for something. “I even have one of those… what do you call them, lullabies.” Cass pulled out a fancy looking phone that was all screen and no buttons.

“Are you trying to put me to sleep?” Juno asked drily and she rolled her eyes, pulling up a video.

“Here.” She said.

The video rolled and a figure with bone-bleached hair and an outfit incredibly similar to the one Cass was wearing now crawled into the back of a limo with a bunch of similarly dressed people as they closed the door behind them and cracked open a bottle of champagne. The video was time stamped and after Cass brought up a feed of pictures and short video clips that showed her and those same people at various locations that Juno recognized from around Hyperion City.

“The word you wanted Cass was alibi.” He said and she waved a hand.

“See, I have one. Go ask anyone in that video and they’ll tell you they were with me all night.”

“Send it to Rita,” He said, holding up the little thing on his phone that had Rita’s email on it.

Cass shook her head. “Fine.” She said, quickly tapping a few things out on her phone and then Rita sent him a text to let him know she had received it and would call with more information when she had it but that so far the geo-tagging and timestamp checked out.

“Anyways, Cecil was supposed to be here all night. Min grounded him.” She said conspiratorially.

“Grounded?” Juno questioned. “Isn’t he like thirty?”

“Would you argue with what Min said?” She asked and he had to concede to that. “He was running up some massive spending sprees on his little collection and starting trouble… he’s been confined to the house for the next month unless he finds a way to make up for it.” Cass shuddered. “Dad backed her up and he threw a temper tantrum so you know maybe the grounding wasn’t out of place. He’s been sulking in his rooms for like a week.”

That was suspicious as hell.

Personally Juno thought that anything that kept Cecil off the mean streets of Hyperion was a good idea; Cecil was the type of person who if you saw on the street you didn’t just cross it to get away, you skipped town and changed your name if you were smart. Trouble was, most people weren’t smart. And he… was really not smart.

“So where is he? Have to ask him this same shit too.”

Cass smirked. “Aw Juno, were you interrogating me? If you had told me I could have had some more fun with you.” He rolled his eyes and she laughed a little, jerking her thumb towards the mausoleum. He followed her thumb, looked at the facade that seemed to swallow the light in the room and looked back at her.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Does this look like my kidding face?” Cass asked, crossing her arms. “Listen, I got to go talk with some of the lawyers about arranging for this to be… cleaned up before anything congeals any farther.” The look on her face as she looked over to where Agent Glass was standing up and putting a few things away before pulling off a pair of latex gloves and shoving them in a plastic bag, presumably so they wouldn’t stain anything.

It looked like...hunger but that couldn’t be right. Maybe some sort of longing he guessed, sometimes it was hard to tell with Cass; hell with the Kanagawas in general. Croesus had often been downright genial right until he was holding a gun to your face and then would seem so angry you wondered how you missed it.

She waved a hand. “So you and your… friend just follow the hall in there and you’ll find your way to Cecil’s rooms. No turns or anything so even you couldn’t get lost.”

He felt like he was being attacked with that and it really wasn’t fair. Juno figured that anyone who wasn’t a Kanagawa could get lost in the Manor but it wasn’t like there were that many of them walking around the place at any one time. Even the household staff were members of the family, however distant.

They all had that same look too, the one he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something in the line of their noses, the cut of their jaws all seemed similar…. Familiar to each other but never anything that he could point and say ‘that, that’s the thing that makes them Kanagawas.’

“On our own again then my dear detective?” Agent Glass asked, crossing the room, smoothing back his hair. He looked up at the mausoleum, seemingly unconcerned except for a slight flicker across his jaw, a tightness in his shoulders. Glass stepped forward, up the stairs. 

Juno nodded, stepping up the shallow stairs. “Into the creepy crypt in the creepy mansion to talk with… Cecil.” Glass pulled at the handle once, twice, then a third time before it finally gave and cold, dry air ruffled Juno's trench coat and nearly blew his hat off.

A noise like a loud moan from a very long way away echoed out and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t give him goosebumps.

Wasn’t going to stop him though.

He stepped forward into the dark hallway. This area of the manor was different from the rest. Juno could see the occasional glimmer of a camera lens but the lighting was so dim that he fumbled for a flashlight in his pocket and flipped it on.

It… didn’t illuminate as much of the hall as he would have liked.

Behind him a brighter light turned on and he turned around to see Agent Glass holding a heavy-duty torch that cast a much brighter beam. “Standard part of the Dark Matters field kit.” He quipped. “Perhaps I should go first?”

The hall was wide enough for them to walk side by side. He still kept one hand on his holster and the other played with the flashlight. He wasn’t going to let go of a source of light back here. Something behind them groaned and the light from the door slowly faded away and Juno turned to see the door closing on it's own. “That’s not a good sign.” He said flatly. “I have a funny feeling that it ain’t going to open if we try it.”

“I would say you are being a pessimist Detective Steel but I think I agree with you .” Glass almost sounded worried. “Deeper into the belly of the beast then. I suspect the only way out is through.”

Off in the distance… ahead of them... behind them, Juno couldn’t tell something skittered.

That was concerning in the worst ways. “So, how long before we reach Cecil’s quarters do you think detective?” Glass asked, looking off into the distance. They’d been walking for a couple of minutes at this point and hadn’t seen anything. Heard plenty of somethings and Juno was pretty sure that something was moving just out of sight, beyond the beam of the flashlight but he hadn’t actually seen them so he could pretend that it was just his imagination acting up.

The skittering was getting louder and sounding a lot less like skittering. More like footsteps.

“I have a suspicion we’re in them right now.” Juno said. “Probably have been since we went through that door.” He couldn’t get a read on Glass in the dim light, the flashlight facing only forward and not doing much else and there was definitely someone or multiple someones in the dark with them.

There was a feeling he got sometime, well a lot of the time on the job right before things started to go straight to hell. He’d gotten it the night before he’d been kicked off the HCPD, right before he had demanded that Croesus pay him two years ago and in the instant he first met Cecil Kanagawa, bloody and smiling in the middle of the Triad’s main den.

There had been far more incidents of it of course but those were the three that were coming to mind as he and Agent Glass stood in the darkened hallway of Kanagawa Manor.

That, he would say later, is what made him throw open the nearest door and tackle Agent Glass into it before slamming the door shut, leaving the Dark Matters standard issue flashlight outside. The lock clicked closed and something outside _snarled._

_TBC_


	2. Chapter Two

## Chapter Two

Being afraid of the dark is a perfectly rational fear.

Who knows what’s lurking behind you, in front of you just out of sight. Everything you hear and smell is magnified and even if you tell yourself that you aren’t afraid there’s a little part of you, something primal at the back of your mind that insists that every noise, every shift of sound is the thing that is going to murder you.

We like to tell ourselves otherwise though.

That there’s nothing to be afraid of, that all those little things we think are lurking under the bed are explainable, if only as the product of an overactive imagination.

Because you can’t light up every dark corner in the world.

You can’t banish the darkness from your life, so you do that human thing and explain it. Make sense of it even if there’s nothing to make sense of. But in the back of your mind… you still know that it's there. Waiting for you.

All the science, all the explanations, floorplans, and knowledge never prepares you for that one moment when you lose the light and are surrounded by nothing but black.

And trust me on this, it is a hell of a lot worse when you’re in a creepy mansion with a murderer on the loose than when the bulb pops in your windowless bathroom at two in the morning.

* * *

 They were trapped in a closet.

Honestly, it was so cliché that if his heart weren’t too busy trying to gallop out of his chest Juno would have actually groaned or complained but instead he tried to catch his breath. He could hear Agent Glass’s breathing, admittedly a lot more even than his own even if he had been the one tackled into a closet without any warning.

Juno fumbled around for the small flashlight he had had earlier and debated turning it on. Something… and yeah, it was definitely a something, not a someone, was still prowling around out there and did he really want to risk the light being seen under the door?

“You know detective, if you wanted to drag me into a closet you could have just asked.”

He didn’t even sound flustered.

Juno was keeping his voice quiet, but everything felt hushed in the confined space and he carefully listened to the footfalls outside the door. Whatever it was, it was pacing back and forth and making some kind of snuffling noise. “Shh.” He said, holding a hand up only to find it almost pressed against Glass’…. Torso? “If it can smell us and your cologne, we’re fucked.” He grumbled. “Cecil must have gotten some new kind of dog, and me without any jerky.”

Glass chuckled and Juno could feel it almost more than he heard it. “Oh detective, I haven’t the foggiest idea of what you’re talking about. Dark Matters is a scent free organization, I couldn’t wear cologne while I’m on the job.”

If he could see him, glaring at Glass would be _far_ more effective.

“I know what I’m smelling.” If that wasn’t cologne, then he would eat his hat. “It's all spicy and shit, people don’t…” He trailed off, realizing that if he had felt Glass’s chuckle he could definitely feel him looking at him. “We should be quiet or forget about smelling us, that thing’ll hear us.”

The thing, Juno was going with dog for now, made a noise and he could hear it sound like it was moving away. He let out a soft sigh of what might have been relief.

Something touched him and it took him a second to realize it was Glass. “It's moved on?” He asked, but he said it like he already knew the answer.

Juno nodded. “Dunno if it’s safe to go out yet.” He said, still keeping his voice quiet. The noises outside the door hadn’t stopped yet exactly but they sounded like they were moving away and that was the best he figured they could hope for in this situation.

“I like a little danger.” Glass whispered and Juno could feel him, he had leaned in so close to him that all he had to do was turn and… “How about you?”

He felt around for the doorknob and flicked his flashlight on before he opened the door. “You think I chose this job for the benefits? Self-employment is a bit of a bitch you know and I could do safer things.”

Juno paused. “But this is what I’m good at.”

Compared to the darkness of the closet, even the little light his flashlight managed to give off in the oppressive darkness was almost blinding. He stumbled out, trying and failing to be quiet before flicking the weak beam along the floor to try and find the flashlight that Glass had dropped in the scuffle.

There was no sign of it and Juno had a whole stream of curses to show how he felt about that.

Glass didn’t seem too concerned by it though, not when Juno turned around and pointed the light at him. “Perhaps the… dog took it back to his master.” He said. The low lighting gave his face a strange cast, something that made Juno want to watch it, see how it changed.

“We should keep moving.” Juno murmured, looking away and moving the flashlight ahead of them.

“Of course.” Glass’s voice was as quiet in the hall as it was in the closet. Maybe even quieter. “Lead the way detective.”

He hadn’t thought it possible for the halls to get creepier but apparently, it was. They trudged onwards, keeping to Cass directions to go ‘straight ahead’ no matter how many side corridors they passed but a part of Juno wondered if the advice still applied even after he had gone to the side and closed the door.

It was ridiculous.

Whatever ominous feelings that this place gave him, it wasn’t actually possible for the hallways to change just because he had taken his eyes off of them. If they were to turn around right now and walk back the way they came they would come to the door they had entered from. It was just a question of whether or not it would open. This wasn’t a horror movie, no matter how much it looked like the set for one.

Off in the distance, and a lot closer than it had been earlier, was the sound of footfalls. Nothing about them sounded like scurrying now, and the fact that other than that and the sound of the two of them breathing everything was dead quiet…

Juno didn’t think his discomfort was unwarranted.

“It seems like filming back here would be quite difficult.” Glass said, obviously intent on breaking the ominous silence. “I think I’ve seen a few cameras but with this lighting I would think the best you would get would be shapes moving in the dark. Doesn’t seem like particularly engaging reality television to me.”

“I dunno, not really my thing. I’d be careful what you say, those things are picking it all up and I know the standard Kanagawa contract includes right to your image and experiences.”

Glass was silent for a long moment. “I don’t recall signing a contract. Or you detective.” His voice had… changed for a minute. It sounded a lot… darker.

He shook his head, then remembered that there was no way Glass would be able to see it. “For you to get on the property and not have those security guards chuck you back over the fence like a sack of flour then Dark Matters must have worked it all out in advance.” Juno grimaced. “I signed a pretty comprehensive one back when I was… their go to detective. It was why I got the job of bringing Cecil back. For my sins.”

There was an audible ‘hmm’ in the dark. “I don’t think I’m a fan of this family, detective.” They passed a dim wall sconce and he saw Glass shake his head. “I will have to have words about the contract. Dark Matters has some _very_ strict clauses about confidentiality and I shan’t be the one to break them.”

Juno almost muttered something along the lines of ‘good luck with that’ but stopped when he realized they had reached a dead-end. “This probably is bad.” He said. “You see any doors?”

“Not since the closet, no.” Glass replied. “Perhaps if we turn back and take one of the side corridors? No matter how confusing these halls are they must reach a destination, our destination, at some point.” He sounded so sure about that and Juno sort of envied him for that.

Cass had said not to take any turns, but he was starting to think she might have been fucking with him. He honestly wouldn’t put it past her so he nodded. “Yeah. Maybe we’ll find where that light of yours went while we’re at it. “ Glass didn’t respond to that.  Juno reached into his pocket and pulled out an old yellow post-it note with an indecipherable scrawl that used to be a telephone number and stuck it in the decorative glass pot on the table.

Even in the dim light he’d be able to see it, so if they wound up turned around again he’d know that they’d already been here. “Quick thinking.” Glass said and Juno pointed the beam up at him, catching a flash of the smile again.

The footfalls were getting louder and he didn’t think it was just his imagination but he also didn’t want to be the first person to say something.

It took awhile to find a turn-off and Juno felt something like regret the moment he stepped into it, because that was when the noises, which had previously seemed to come from nowhere in particular, suddenly started to come from behind them. “You hear that?” He asked, turning to Glass.

“I’m afraid I do detective.” Glass sounded worried which… also did not bode well. “I think we might want to start running.”

He didn’t have to be told twice.

The hallway seemed to stretch on forever and all Juno could do was do his best to try and follow after Agent Glass, who had the advantage of longer legs. He didn’t know how many turns they took, how many doors  Agent Glass opened and let swing so they both could make it through, but the footfalls and the noises seemed to be right behind them. His heart was beating so fast he could feel it in his throat.

He wasn’t sure how long they had been running when he started hearing it. The laughter, the fucking _familiar_ laughter. Juno had no idea how a sound like that could come out of a human throat; he had heard hyenas cackle like that on some nature documentaries but damn if Cecil didn’t manage to make it his own.

It certainly made Agent Glass pick up the pace but it didn’t seem to do them any good when Juno caught the edge of a decorative side table and saw a bright yellow square inside a pot.

This wasn’t the hallway he had left it in, he was sure of that. Had Cecil found it and moved it? Juno opened his mouth to tell Glass to keep running, when had he stopped?

But then everything went sideways.

* * *

The room he came to in was brighter, sort of.

He could hear Agent Glass next to him or behind him, maybe, and he tried to move only to feel the bite of zip ties on his wrist and the sensation of another pair of hands, arms pressed tightly against his. They were back to back then. A noise escaped his throat; something between a groan and a moan. His head _ached_ and he could taste blood in his mouth, but it wasn’t like either of those were unfamiliar sensations.

Agent Glass was talking. It sounded like water coming over a cliff, rushing and noisy but nothing he could turn into actual words, and Juno wondered if he even knew he was awake. He moved his hand again and the words focused like the lens of a camera.

“...you know this really was not what I had in mind for this job. Go to Hyperion City, you’ve never been. It will be so interesting, Rex, and the Mask of Grimpoteuthis is not an artifact you get to examine everyday.” His hand brushed back, tapping a pattern on the skin of Juno’s wrist.

Took him more than a moment to recognize it as morse code.

He tried to clear his vision, blinking a couple of times as he looked around the room, still slumped and trying to appear like he hadn’t woken up. If it was a ruse Glass was trying to maintain it wasn’t one that Juno was going to break without assessing the situation first.

They were in the center of a voluminous room, so large that from the angle he was at he couldn’t see the back walls, and against the wall was a theatre of seats and professional camera equipment. There was a spotlight above them, but beyond it the lights seemed as dim as they were in the hallways they had been running through earlier. The seats weren’t filled, they couldn’t be filled with people, but whenever he turned away from a row it felt as if he was suddenly being watched by hundreds of unseen eyes. The cameras _were_ manned and Juno wanted to curse at the sight of hulking figures in drab, colorless clothes.

Cameramen.

It wasn’t like Cecil could hire normal people to do his bidding and turn his life into a horror of a reality show; no, he had to hire them exclusively from a crowd of people too creepy to be hired as extras in a zombie movie. None of them ever gave names and seemed to communicate exclusively in grunts and gestures so Juno had taken to calling them all ‘Bob’ and addressing them collectively on the few occasions he’d had to deal with them over the years.

 **‘Armed. Caution. No sign of boss’** tapped out over his wrist and Juno coughed like he was only just coming to. Something in the shadows beyond the spotlight shifted and he could feel Glass’s muscles tense.

“My dear detective.” Glass said, his voice. “How nice of you to join me. I’m afraid I really am not enjoying our hosts’… hospitality.” The word dripped with distaste. “None of these gentlemen are sufficient company for my lovely self.”

Juno coughed again. “Aw Glass, you’re going to hurt their feelings you keep that up.” He said, trying to sit up straight as the plastic dug into his skin.

Glass chuckled. “Oh detective, I asked you to call me Rex.” His voice seemed to curl up his spine. “Glass sounds so… stuffy.”

“What kind of name is ‘Rex’ anyways?” Juno said. “Your mother name you after a dinosaur?”

He chuckled, the sound as deep as the roaring from earlier. It was another strange detail, another thing that Juno filed away in his mind as unexplained, inexplicable and a part of this man that Sasha had sent to his door. “It means king. I imagine my mother had high ambitions for me.” His fingers brushed up the underside of Juno’s arm ‘ **Your left** ’ the taps said and his skin prickled, trying to look without looking. “What about you detective? Juno.” He said his name, savored it like it was fine wine or chocolate melting in his mouth.

Juno couldn’t remember ever hearing his name said like that.

Something to treasure, to savor.

He reminded himself not to think anything of it. It was a distraction, something to keep Cecil distracted while they planned. **‘Knife. Hold still.’** He tapped back.

In his line of work he got tied up, handcuffed, or otherwise encumbered on a pretty regular basis. To the point where he had come up with a few cheap ways around the problem. Handcuffs, he had taught himself how to dislocate his thumb just right before entering the Academy. In most situations he could pop a pair of zip ties but he hadn’t been awake and that was the trick with them. For rope, and for occasions like this all he needed was a dollar store box-cutter and a bit of thread. Juno twisted his hand around, trying to get ahold of the thread that attached to the box-cutter in his sleeve.

“It's a lovely name. Goddess of protectors, queen of the heavens.” He was smiling. Juno knew it. “Every king needs a queen you know and I have a space open.”

Juno grit his teeth, carefully pulling on the thread. If it fell to the floor they were both fucked. “I dunno. Everything I ever heard about her paints a bit of a different story. Had a nasty habit of killing her kids didn’t she? My mythology is a little rusty.”

“Oh?” Glass shifted slightly and Juno could feel the boxcutter start to move, sliding slowly at first. “Do you have a nasty streak Juno?”

The boxcutter dropped into his hands and he let his lips move up into a smile for a moment while he worked out all the angles. It wasn’t exactly like trajectory but he could feel the zip tie moving, slicker now, enough to let him know that the plastic had dug in tight enough that it had started bleeding. Like the pain wasn’t enough to tell him that.

Best to get Glass cut free first.

“Me no, I’m a regular angel.” He snarked, twisting the boxcutter around. “Mom on the other hand… Well, never managed to kill me, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.” The blood was dripping on his hand, but he just had to move it a little more and he’d get the….

He heard Glass hiss, then jerk, and realized that he must have gotten him. “Detective!” The blade hit the floor with little fanfare and he could hear Cecil’s laugh again.

“I told you not to move.” Juno grit out. “Now I have no knife and we’re still stuck to these chairs.”

They didn’t have much time left, Cecil was coming out of the darkness slowly like he had nothing to worry about at all. “Back pocket.” Glass said, his voice soft and hurried. “Detective, reach into my back pocket. I have something I think, a knife,  I can’t reach it but you have a better angle than I do.”

Juno reached; ignoring the blood and the pain, to rummage through Agent Rex Glass’s pockets.

If he had had the time to think about it he would have marveled about the amount that Glass had managed to fit inside them. Pens, a pad of paper, something sharp that he thought was a knife for a second but it felt like a needle.

“Well, well, well” Cecil’s voice was bright, bright enough to cut through the gloom. “My darling Junebug! Cassie is officially my favorite sister again.” He clapped his hands together as Juno continued going through Glass’s pockets. He just had to find the fucking knife, there was no way he wanted Cecil to get too close to him while he was still bound and couldn’t put a weapon between them.

The threat of being shot was their best bet of getting out of this room in one piece and relatively untraumatized.

Also, nice to know that Cass had sold him down the river.

Cecil Kanagawa looked like his twin sister but at the same time he didn’t. Both of them had the same bone white hair, same haircut even, but the ends of Cecil’s were usually dyed in some shade of neon and his makeup and clothes were brighter.

Cass also didn’t have that glint in her eyes or a face-splitting smile that reminded you that in most species pulling the lips back and exposing your teeth was a potential demonstration of their ability to rip your throat out.

His hand squished in something, half a sandwich by the feel of it and he found the knife between it and slowly drew his hand out. The blade was sharp and went through the plastic around Glass’s wrists like they were nothing but butter. He felt him grab the knife as Cecil cleared the last of the distance between them.

“Whatever brings you to my neck of the woods?” Cecil cooed.

Juno raised an eyebrow, debating between the feeling in his gut and the advantages of surprise. “Didn’t Cass tell you?”

His eyes were large and dark and being pinned by them made Juno uncomfortable, like he was being picked apart and examined and not in a good way. More like how you inspected a turkey while you carved it, ready to excise gristle and carve away fat to get to the good stuff. “Tell me what? All she said is that my favorite little Junebug was coming by and had some questions to ask me.” He slid his knee against Juno’s. “She failed to mention the Interloper.”

The emphasis on the word felt like a physical thing in the room, dripping out of Cecil’s mouth like sludge. More title than word.

“They call me Agent Rex Glass actually.” Glass’s response felt like a knife, or maybe that was the blade going through Juno’s zip ties as he bolted up out of the chair and pushed him off of him.

“Oh Junebug, if you wanted to touch me you could have just asked~” Cecil practically purred as Juno reached for his gun. “And look at your wrists, it's like you read my mind too.” He licked his lips, staring at his blood-covered hands.

He raised his gun up, but it didn’t seem to concern Cecil any.

Hell, he just looked at the weapon like it was a water pistol and the worst it could do was ruin his clothes.

That was annoying.

The blood dripping down his arm tickled and it was going to stain his trenchcoat, which sucked. Not like he hadn’t gotten blood on it before though, and as long as he didn’t think about it too hard it was basically background noise.

“Hello Mr. Kanagawa.” Glass’s voice was cold and Cecil’s face turned into something like a pout.

He turned his head to the side, still unconcerned by the handgun Juno was holding in the general direction of his face. “Interloper, why don’t you scurry off before I get annoyed? You’re ruining my fun time.”

Juno could see Glass out of the corner of his eye, see the look on his face that is like ice, like something miles behind a wall of glass so far away that whatever is there is out of sight even though he’s no more than a few feet away. “As I said, call me Agent Glass.” There’s a flash of something bright, the knife that he had slipped him earlier and he’s holding it.

The ease of how he did it drew Juno’s eye towards him inextricably and he can see the knife, see how it's grip fits into the calluses that he had felt on Glass’s hand a few hours (had it only been hours?) earlier.

The knife Cecil seems to take more seriously.

Annoyance, anger flashed over his face in equal measure and he bared his teeth in something that only resembles a smile in basic description. His lips were pulled back but it was really more of a snarl. There’s another rumbling in the room, somewhere that Juno couldn’t pinpoint.

Cecil narrowed his eyes and snapped his fingers towards the cameramen.

Bob One began to amble towards them, his compatriots showing a little more initiative and actually picking up their feet. Juno counted about three of them coming towards them; all over six feet and all muscled like dockers.

“Glass, run.” He said out of the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t think so detective”

Why wasn’t he running? Juno didn’t know why he wasn’t running yet but he did manage to take a step back as Cecil stepped forward again. “See, Interloper,” Cecil said. “He wants some alone time with me~”

Juno shook his head and Cecil frowned. “Concerned about him? How cute. You are just _adorable_ like that Juno. Perfect counterpart for my lovely self. I told you we would be great on camera together.” He reached out towards Juno and his nails look so sharp in the light that he almost mistakes them for claws. “All I have to do is get rid of the Interloper and I can have you all to myself.” He draws out the word ‘all’ with a manic giggle that breaks whatever spell he has on Juno and his legs finally decide to listen and move.

“I don’t think murder of a federal officer will go over too well with the network.” Juno commented, staring him down.

Cecil giggled and it sent a shiver down Juno’s spine. “Federal officer? How… quaint. Oh Junebug, who said anything about sharing your debut with anyone but my lovely self?’’ He crooked his finger towards Juno. “Shame, you’re so delicious I should share you with the world but mother will forgive me this little sin I think. Just one… little thing~”

He turned his head, lolling to the side as he looked at Glass. “Get him.” He ordered, his voice all sugar and poison. “Get him, get him, get him!”

The cameramen were coming towards them and Juno kept stepping backwards, unwilling to give Cecil his back to aim at. “Did you catch what direction we came from? Where the door is?” He shouted, aiming for the center mass of Bob Two and firing once, twice, and a third time when the bullets didn’t seem to be slowing him down any.

Cecil must have been investing in good body armor. Juno wasn’t surprised. A knife came out of god fuck nowhere and embedded itself in Bob Three’s thick neck but that didn’t do much either.

Was the thing even bleeding?

He shook his head, trying to make it so he take Glass’s back. It was practical. They were outnumbered and Cecil knew this territory like the scarred back of his own hand and it was in both of their best interests to have someone behind them and even if they didn’t know each other Glass was better back up then nothing, and he _really_ did not want to end up alone and at whatever Cecil might call ‘mercy’.

“Is there anything that can slow them down?” Glass asked, panting slightly as he went for another knife from his belt.

Really what kind of weapon were knives for a special agent?

Juno supposed there was an advantage to the fact that you never had to worry about running out of bullets with a knife but if he was throwing them then he’d still run out and the one in his hands required an intimate sort of distance that meant getting way too close to the cameramen.

If you were close enough to stab or slice at them then they were probably close enough to put you in a sleeper hold and Juno might have a habit, tendency what have you to do shit that would get him killed one of these days but having his neck snapped by guys with hands the size of baseball mitts really wasn’t on his list of ways he’d be happy going out.

“Well if you come up with something you can tell me!” Juno yelled back, turning his gun on Bob Two who had been using his distraction to try and sneak up on him from the side. “I don’t think so buddy!” He shouted, moving his aim up.

“I mean I _guess_ we could try and experiment. Get a lab coat, some beakers together. You think they’ll stop long enough for us to get it organized?”

Glass, fucker that he is, laughed. It's full-throated and velvety and it's in his moment of distraction that he realizes that no more than one Bob has been coming at him at a time, Bob Two while One and Three have been surrounding Glass.

 _‘Get him’_ Cecil had said. He wanted Glass out of the way so he could play his little game.

Juno had thought that he could use that to give Glass a chance to escape, that if he started running they would pursue him, trap him for Cecil but they were going for a more permanent solution. He cursed the filthiest string of epithets he had picked up in all of his years in Old Town and the Academy and put one between Bob Two’s eyes.

If that didn’t take him down, for just a couple of minutes Juno didn’t know what would.

The cameramen were big targets even for an amateur shot and Juno had bypassed amateur at fifteen years old when he had gotten a hold of a handgun with the serial number sanded off, a back lot with more bottles then the local recycling plant, and the Old Town Underground where anything you didn’t shoot and eat would give you fleas and try to take a bite out of you the minute your back was turned.

Bob Two went down slowly, but he did go down and Juno figured it would be inappropriate to let out a sigh of relief but this was the first evidence he’d found that the cameramen could be taken down like any other rough and tough.

He ran over towards the other two and Glass who was doing a… surprisingly good job at keeping the two of them off him. Juno didn’t know what it was that he was doing but none of them seemed to want to get to get all that much closer to him.

They weren’t looking away from him though, and that did work to his advantage as he put a bullet in the back of Bob… Three’s? Neck.

He… it? Let out a roar of pain, massive hands reaching back to clutch at the injury but nothing blew out the front so the bullet was still in him. Juno didn’t want to think too hard about that but even with its compatriot screaming in pain Bob One kept circling Glass like a vulture or a dog, looking for some vulnerability, some opening to rush in at him.

“Come on Glass, you’re making me look bad.” Juno smirked, putting another bullet into Bob Three with the hope of getting him away from Glass until they could take care of One. Two hadn’t gotten back up yet and Juno was starting to think that headshots might be their best solutions.

At least that was something he _could_ do.

Juno Steel, sharpshooter extraordinaire.

Glass smiled at him. “Just waiting for you my dear detective.” His voice was affectionate, like there was nothing else in the wide world that he’d rather be doing then fighting off cameramen in an abandoned film set.

That had to be what this was, a setup so Cecil could keep filming his shows even when Min had forbidden him from leaving the building. Smart idea, but god Juno wouldn’t want to be in the studio audience.

The last of the cameramen appeared to be smarter than the others or more focused at least. Now that Juno had entered the fray his attention should have been split but he didn’t seem particularly concerned with his presence.

Pressing his advantage was still hard, even if Bob wasn’t paying attention to him.

His hands were huge and he had definitely figured out what his compatriots hadn’t. Namely, that bullets hurt like a son of a bitch and it was best if he avoided them.

Most of the time avoiding them seemed to involving swatting at him like he was some kind of bug but Juno thought he was getting the hang of it. Bob had reach and more then a little strength on him but he was faster and hell if he wasn’t smarter.

Everytime he started getting too close to Glass he would jump in and shoot him.

Hands, arms, chest; anything to keep him from actually getting his hands on Glass for more than a brief pass. He would roar and turn and swat at him but other then knocking him on his ass he seemed almost afraid of doing anymore damage then that.

“You must have been an only child detective.” Glass bit out. “You are just terrible at sharing!”

Juno laughed, ducking under a fist. Usually he would throw one back but he didn’t think it would do much other than tickle the big guy. “You kidding? This isn’t playtime you know!”

Glass’s eyes blazed with amusement as he dodged so smoothly that it looked like Bob had swung at empty air and nearly stumbled over his own two feet. “I beg to differ, though usually I like a more… cerebral challenge for myself.” He smiled at Juno and those teeth of his glinted.

There was something sparking in the air, an energy that made him want to laugh as Glass shot forward towards Bob One, knife in hand. Bob One reached for him but Rex was too fast and kicked away the mitt of a hand and drove the knife up under his soft palate so hard the knife lodged inside.

Something started to… drip over his hand but it wasn’t the right color for blood Juno swore. It was black and viscous like engine oil and Glass looked at it like it was a piece of dog shit that had stuck to his shoe. “How disgusting.” He muttered before yanking his knife out.

The substance, blood? Was it blood? Started coming out like sludge from a gummy faucet trying to clear itself.

“Well I’m never going to get that out.” Glass said. “I liked that knife.” He threw it back over his shoulder and it landed deep in the trachea of Bob Three who had been trying to lunge forward. “I’m adding it to my expenses for all of this.” He said like he was discussing getting shitty service at a hotel or having to change a spare tire.

The cameramen looked like they were deflating.

Glass turned around, looking up to where Cecil had perched himself. “Well Mr. Kanagawa, you have wasted both mine and…. Juno’s time.” He purposefully used Juno’s name. “I find myself quite disappointed to see that this is the kind of hospitality that the Kanagawa family offers _invited_ guests.”

Cecil looked a kind of furious that Juno didn’t think he had seen before. “You. Are Not. My. Guest.” He hissed out. Something in the air crackled and was suddenly filled with the scent of decay and cheap roses, blood and wet, loose soil. “Daddy would never,”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by what Glass said next. “Croesus Kanagawa is dead.” His voice was flat, without affect but it echoed through the room like he had shouted it through a loudspeaker. “So I don’t think he’ll be doing much.”

It was cruel but Cecil had worn out most of Juno’s good will with the murder attempt.

It had certainly taken the wind out of Cecil’s sails. His whole face had gone blank, then tears started welling up in his eyes. “Daddy?” He cried out, the tears flowing over the edges. It took Juno a bit a back, he wanted to cry crocodile tears but something about the suddenness of it…

Cecil was as much of an actor as any other Kanagawa. You couldn’t trust them or what they showed on the surface, not for a minute because nine times out of ten it was all spin, all fodder for the cameras. But…

Nothing was recording if Cecil was to be believed. There was no audience to pander to, no executives going over his every little emotion. Just the three of them and the deflating bodies of the cameramen.

(That was another thing going in his vault of ‘never thinking about it again’)

“Why did you think I was here?” Juno asked, frowning deeply. Like Cass, Cecil had been around for the ultimatum and the asskicking that had accompanied it. “Croesus told me to never come back here, I wouldn’t break that just to see you.”

Cecil looked at him like that was some kind of surprise. “People tell you that they’re going to kill you all the time Junebug. That’s never stopped you before.”

That was… okay, that was pretty true.

If he gave in and avoided every place owned or occupied by someone who had threatened to kill him or had tried to kill him he would never leave the office. He shrugged off the thought. “He died last night in his trophy room. Used that new mask of his to crush his skull.”

“Would have happened at quarter after midnight.” Glass contributed. “About.” He added with a little smile.

“And from what we’ve been told, the display case for that particular mask needs your DNA too if you’re going to open it up and get to it.” Juno added, looking at Glass out of the corner of his eyes. “Also heard you were angry with your ‘daddy’ about the whole grounding thing… and something about him taking one of your sister’s ideas over yours for next season?”

Surprise followed by a bone deep fear that Juno didn’t think Cecil capable of covered up by more surprise and a little something like anger… maybe annoyance.

“I wasn’t here last night.” Cecil said, flouncing into a director’s chair with a great deal of ceremony as he pulled out a slim tablet. “Didn’t get back in until three AM.” He flipped his hair away from his face. “Don’t give me that look Junebug, I’m a terrible liar.” He gave Juno a saucy pout and a wink. “Went out for drinks, painted the town red and all that.”

He shook his head slowly. “No, you were grounded.” It felt weird applying the word to a thirty-year old man but he went with it. “Min’s orders. Cass told me.” Cecil covered his mouth with a little giggle.

“She did?” He asked. “Well I am grounded.” The pout returned. “Mother is in such a mood over my discretionary spending but I sent her a proposal just this week on how to make up the funds. I’m going to call it ‘From The Jaws of Death’” He spread his hands out, obviously imagining the title card coming up on a screen. “Every week a new device, all of it's history on how it was used, when it was most in vogue and a few… practical demonstrations on test dummies to give the audience the picture and then we strap the contestants in and see how long it takes them to get out.” Cecil paused, taking in the faint horror on Juno’s face. “Of course we’ll dull everything so no one gets anything more than a few bumps and bruises… maybe a scrape or two.” He looked disappointed over the prospect. “She greenlit it yesterday, tomorrow we were supposed to start putting things in motion so we could get onto pre-production.”

Cecil sounded, looked perfectly professional, going over things on the tablet and showing them to Agent Glass who nodded like all of it made sense.

“My little… sentence was going to be up today, once she talked to Daddy.” He sniffled and his eyes started welling up like he was going to start sobbing. “But last night, Cass said she was tired but she has such a strict filming schedule, she had to go out.” His eyes were still wet when he looked at Juno. “I’m her twin so of course I helped her out. All it takes is a quick wash-out for my hair and some contouring and nobody can tell the difference. I promised not to tell mother, she gets so angry with Cassie about shirking her responsibilities.”

He held out the tablet. “This is my personal feed. I record everything you know Junebug. For posterity. But you knew that” His smile was wicked and Juno took the tablet numbly.

Technology was not his thing but he recognized the watermark on the corner of the screen. Cecil used it for all of the footage filmed from his personal camera. He had seen it enough when he’d been tracking him down since it had been what allowed him and Rita to locate where the Triad was holding him.

Maybe it had been tampered with, doctored somehow but Cecil’s reaction to the news of Croesus’s death had felt genuine. It was the same scenes that Cass had shown him earlier but from a closer perspective where Juno could see the minute differences, the little things that made Cecil Cecil and Cass Cass and it was Cecil in that video.

Croesus’s murder hadn’t been premeditated. Not to the extent where Cecil would have had the time and forethought to shoot identical fake footage for an alibi.

That kind of blunt trauma was rarely premeditated.

Juno gave it back to Cecil. Cass had lied to him. About her show, about where she had been… It hurt more then it should have. She was a Kanagawa. He didn’t know what else he should have expected from her.

God, he wanted out of this hell hole of a mansion.

“Detective…” Glass sounded like he was trying to be delicate. “Perhaps we can go see if we can procure some iodine for those injuries of yours. Bandage them?” Juno looked down at his wrists. They were already starting to scab over.

He shook his head. “No. Only place I want to go is Min Kanagawa’s office.” Juno grit his teeth. “I think I have some questions for her, then we can finish this case up.”

Then maybe he could sleep for a week. Rita could take care of the office and call it the ‘vacation’ she was always needling him to take.

Glass looked at him for a moment, searching for something and whatever he found seemed to satisfy him if the tiny little smile that graced his lips was anything to go by. “Alright Juno.” His mouth still curved around Juno’s name like he was savoring a treasure. He turned away, looking at Cecil, those glittering eyes more like ice then embers. “Mr. Kanagawa, can you show us the way to Min’s office?”

For a second Juno thought that Cecil was going to complain but then he scowled, got up and started strutting off in the direction he had originally come from.

The hallways were much brighter now and matched up, roughly with what he had seen in the rest of the house. Dark paint with wall sconces every fifteen feet that were now blazing with light. The painting on the wall were a lot less abstract however. Violence; bodies being torn to pieces by spears and swords and teeth depending on the painting. Some of it, most of it were reproductions of classics but it did nothing to take away from the atmosphere.

He walked slowly, rubbing his wrists and trying not to think about the bruises he had picked up, Glass matching his pace. He looked disheveled, hair breaking free of it's gel and a little blood dripping from his lip.

His Dark Matters uniform was no worse for wear but Juno suspected that’s why they had chosen the outfits they did. It was hard to dirty up black clothes and he wouldn’t be surprised if they had some built in body armor to protect those wearing them. “He seems to be a fan of classic Greco-Roman art.” Glass said, looking at one of the paintings they passed.

Juno looked at it, his nose wrinkling up. A man with wide, mad eyes was biting off the head of what looked to be a child. There was no blood, no gore but the look in his eyes was…

“You never answered my earlier question Juno.” Glass said, drawing his attention away from the label beneath the painting. ‘Saturn Eats his Son’. “Only child?’

He didn’t look at Glass at first, looking at the eyes of Saturn. “....You know how I said my mom never managed to kill me?” He glanced to the side and Glass knew what the rest of his answer was before he finished his sentence. He could just tell. “Yeah, well my brother wasn’t so lucky.”

“Juno…”

“It was a long time ago.” He said, stepping forward. “Come on, we got to keep moving or we’ll lose him and I don’t want to get lost back here. Again.”

* * *

 Min Kanagawa was Croesus’s second wife.

Years of detective experience would usually insist that she should be his first suspect but there were a number of reasons why Juno had put her relatively low on the list and it wasn’t just that Dark Matters contract or not it was her purse that his payment was going to come out of.

“Juno Steel it has been years.” Her face was serene, as smooth as a lake made of glass. If he didn’t know better he would not have guessed that she had just lost her husband. She had none of the mixed emotions that had flickered over Cass’s face or any of the larger than life grief that had accompanied Cecil’s dramatic sobs. “I did so disapprove of Croesus’s hasty decision regarding you.” Her dark eyes flicked over him as she continued signing paperwork. “Hopefully… well…” She trailed off, put down the pen she was holding and rested her chin on her folded hands. “Cecil dear said that you had some questions for me?”

Among those reasons was the persistent rumor that she had opened up the spot of ‘second wife’ for herself. No one worked that hard for a position only to kill the man it was attached too.

Rumors were currency, counterfeit often as not but no matter how icy and composed she appeared on the outside something in his gut told Juno that she was not directly involved in the man’s murder.

He nodded his head, carefully acknowledging the compliment for what it was. He had long since decided that, no matter what he did with the rest of the family that he would never unnecessarily provoke Min. Her demeanor had always made him think of a spider, sitting in it's web and waiting for unwary prey to stumble in.

It was something in her eyes he thought.

Perhaps that was why. Juno figured that if Min had been the one to kill Croesus it wouldn’t have looked like murder and it wouldn’t have been this messy. No way would she approve it.

Unlike how he had acted with Cecil, Glass was nothing but respectful. He watched her and she didn’t look directly at him until he had introduced himself and then he had kissed her hand like a gentleman in an old fashioned movie.

“Just a few. Clear up a few final details before we wrap everything up.” He took his hat, brushing his forehead and then replacing it. “I imagine that there is some surveillance footage of the trophy room.” He began and Min looked… annoyed.

“Any and all footage recorded within the premises of Kanagawa Manor is the sole property of the Kanagawa Family and the Kanagawa Production Company.” She said, reciting one of the basic tenants of any Kanagawa contract. “We can’t just show that to anyone.”

He nodded his head, “But you do want to find Croesus’s murderer and I’ve already signed the confidentiality agreement. There’s a reason why you asked for me to get involved despite how Croesus felt about me while he was alive.”

Her lips thinned slightly and she nodded and passed him a tablet. “We’ve reviewed it but there are irregularities with the footage. Blackouts in the moments leading up to the murder and we never saw the face of who did it and then the footage cuts out again.” She folded her hands on the desk. “If this had been a simple matter of checking security footage then I never would have contacted Dark Matters at all and handled this matter internally.” She didn’t look at Glass but his posture stiffened. “No offense to… your organization Agent but we have plenty of our own people within the city who have the required experience and delicacy to work with us.”

“None taken.” Glass responded, seemingly examining his manicure.

She was right of course as Juno panned through the footage. The first blackout was so subtle. No black screens but the trophy room went from being entirely empty with only dim lights around the displays to brightly lit with Croesus standing in front of Grim’s Mask, seemingly shouting at someone offscreen. A quick look at the corner revealed that the timestamp had jumped over an hour.

Juno looked all across the screen, hitting pause to try and see who Croesus was looking at but there was no one else there. Not that he could see. He frowned, brows furrowing as he saw something in the corner, just out of sight of the camera. A little white blob, barely distinguishable given the white marble of the floor.

He hit play again and the screen glitched. Juno looked up at Min and she just shook her head. “Don’t worry about it Juno dear.” She said. “It isn’t you, it's the camera. Keep watching if you please.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. He looked down again and the blob, the head he had decided had moved but the glitching had removed any more detail from being visible. Croesus’s face had warped into a distorted blob and if he had just seen this screenshot he wouldn’t be able to tell that it was even Croesus. He squinted at the screen, trying to make something, anything stand out.

The angle of the camera barely caught the full display but something about the lighting and the glitched out video made it look like the Mask was… smiling.

On screen the blob almost solidified into a person and pushed Croesus into the display case but instead of hitting solid glass he went through the display and the Mask fell onto his face, the last image before everything on the screen turned into snow.

“You might just want to fast forward a bit.” Min advised. “The next twenty minutes are completely gone. We’ve been trying for most of the day to recover the footage but it's been totally corrupted.”

“How unfortunate.” Glass said, but he didn’t sound particularly upset.

Juno passed Min the tablet back and she nodded. “It is but I suppose that is just life.” She reached for a handkerchief off the corner of the desk and dabbed at her eyes. They were dry as far as Juno could tell. “Was it helpful?” She looked like she expected him to say no.

“Not as much as I would have liked but it gave me enough to provide some support for my theory.” Juno said.

There was shouting coming from outside the office doors and he turned just as Cass came through them, Cecil shouting something incoherent at her. “...you didn’t even let me know about daddy!” Cecil shrieked. “We talked on the phone for nearly twenty minutes Cassie! We shared a womb!”

Cass looked at him, bristling in her fury and Juno half-wonders if he should be expecting something to explode. It seems on track for the kind of night he’s been having. “Oh my god, do you have to bring that up? You want to go back that far, I can start rehashing every time when that didn’t mean anything to you!”

The whole thing looked like it was about to dissolve into an all out brawl and Glass had stepped forward, not towards the problem but so that he was standing next to Juno. And Min…

Min looked furious. “Children.” She said in a flat voice that made Cass and Cecil turn towards her. “Is this how you behave in public?”

Juno didn’t really understand the question. One of the most watched clips of the Kanagawa’s family reality show was from the twins last birthday party where the two of them had done a very good job of trying to violently murder each other in front of three hundred party guests and the forty million viewers at home.

He figured it had been staged, but this argument seemed paltry in comparison.

Both of them quailed however, Cecil softly murmuring a ‘sorry mother’ and backing away from Cass who still was boiling under the surface. He looked like he wanted to get away from whatever was about to go down and Juno was a little nervous about whatever was triggering _Cecil’s_ flight or fight instinct.

“Cassandra.” Min said, standing up from the desk. “We have guests.”

Her chin jutted up in defiance. “Where is it.” She asked, her voice quiet and deadly. The question turned Min’s face into a thunderhead but it wasn’t breaking yet. “I know you have it, I know he signed it and you’re hiding it!”

“Darling, can it not wait?” Min said, her face still dark. “That is family business and now is not the time. Go with Cecil and we can discuss this… later.” The tone of her voice was as dark as her face but Cass stands for one minute, then two without moving.

Min is one second away from ordering her out when Juno cleared his throat. “Let her stay.” He said, not quite a suggestion but close enough that she can choose not to be insulted. He looked at Cass who despite her anger looked nervous all of a sudden.

Slowly, Min sat down, raising a single eyebrow in a challenge.

Whatever he had that had made him interrupt her had better be good that look said.

The door to the office closed and Glass still stood next to him but had turned slightly, as if trying to get the best view of what Juno was about to do or say.

“Croesus was murdered using Grim’s Mask but the glass of the display wasn’t broken so it had to have been opened using the proper security codes.” Juno began. “Meaning someone else had to be in the room with him in order to open the display case and that person is likely the murderer. When we arrived Cassandra said that the second DNA lock was coded to her and Cecil so of course I asked her about her alibi. Procedure.”

“She was out filming last night for the show.” Min said, eyes narrowing. “Didn’t get back in until nearly three in the morning and went straight to bed according to our records.”

He nodded. “I know. She showed me the footage from the cameras in the limo and around town. So we went to talk to Cecil and after he got finished trying to turn us into exhibits for his next show we managed to talk to him but… he had a different story.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “See, along with showing us the camera footage Cass told us a story about how Croesus was going to bring her documentary idea and put it on the schedule for next season rather than picking up another Cecil Kanagawa Original. How he had finally listened to her.”

Cass was so tense that she was vibrating like a plucked string and now Min was staring at her, hands falling down towards her lap.

“But Cecil showed me two things. One was his copy of last night’s footage, filmed from his personal camera including the watermark. Apparently the two of them switch places sometimes. Cass wasn’t feeling up to an appearance and Cecil wanted out of the house.”

She had paled a few degrees. “The other thing he showed me was a preliminary copy of the schedule for your network for next season. No documentaries, just… what was it he called the show? ‘From the Jaws of Death’?” He looked at Glass who nodded. “I’d caught her in a lie. Hard thing to do with you guys.” He said, looking Min dead in the eye. “But still, your lawyers you’d call it nothing more than a theory and be done with me. Wouldn’t even make the news cycle. After all, Cass could have opened the case and then left, leaving Croesus to be murdered by someone else while he was alone.”

Juno pointed to the tablet. “As you said Min, the footage was too degraded to directly identify the killer and without sound I can’t say for sure what the argument was about but I can make some guesses.”

Cass was looking at him like he had betrayed her, but Juno continued on. “If you watch it, right before the video starts to glitch out you can see a head of white hair in the corner. Right before the murder you can see the same white patch push Croesus.” He paused. “There are only two people in this house with that color hair and only one of them was in the house that night.”

There was a long silence. Or maybe it just felt long as Min began to rise from behind the desk.

“Is this true?”

For a second he didn’t know who she was directing the question at and nearly responded with a ‘Of course it's true, I wouldn’t implicate the one person in this house I like if it wasn’t’ but then he saw Cass trembling.

She swallowed, staring down Min like she was the barrel of a gun. “Where is it?” She asked again, repeating the question she had nearly screamed when she entered the room. “I saw him sign the agreement for next season, he _promised_ me that I could go out, that I could travel and then I got the copy sent out yesterday evening and it was _gone_.”

There were a million calculations going on behind Min’s eyes and there’s no way that Juno could follow even half of them but he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye near the ceiling. “Cass,” He interrupted, something in his gut turning.

But she was on a roll and obviously had no intention of stopping.

“I went to go talk to him. All I wanted to do was talk, I swear!” She said, her voice getting louder and higher. “To ask him why he had lied to me but when I got there all he could talk about was the goddamn Mask!” Angry tears were leaking out of her eyes. “Ever since he came back from the dig it's been the only thing he cares about!”

Min’s eyes glinted and she looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. To his side Juno felt Glass… Rex lean in, curiousity splashing over his face for a moment before he controlled it and returned to a look of polite interest.

“I went in there and all he could do was scream about it and I yelled at him about the contract but he just ignored me!” Her shoulders were heaving. “Saying all these things about how it was trying to get out and that he’d have to increase security and I told him I didn’t give a fuck about the stupid mask and where was the schedule and why did he lie to me but he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about when I had _seen_ the new schedule.”

Her face stilled for a moment, like she was remembering what had happened. Her eyes were distant. “I just pushed him and it… fell on him and…” Her head tilted to the side. “It was laughing at me. And then there was blood. So much… blood.” Cass’s hands has started to shake. “He was dead and I…” Her eyes welled up with tears. “I didn’t mean to!” The last part was a wail. “Why couldn’t he just admit what he did?”

Under her makeup Min looked a little pale but other than that she seemed… unmoved.

Her lips pursed slightly. “Oh Cassandra…” She sounded almost pitying and Cass had begun weeping in earnest. “I am so sorry I have to do this.”

Cass looked up, mascara running and something caught in Juno’s gut caught.

There was a phone in Min’s hand and there were security cameras in each of the corners. High definition and Juno was willing to bet all the liquor in his office that this feed had sound. Surround sound even. Cass opened her mouth up to speak and Min raised her other hand. “Not a word without your lawyer dear. The HCPD will be here to take care of things in… about twenty minutes.”

Two men that dwarfed the cameramen that were probably still deflating in the downstairs studio each took one of Cassandra’s arms as she started to scream.

This didn’t appear to concern Min any as she went through a rapid fire conversation with whoever was on the other end. Probably the chief or whoever the Kanagawas had in highest up in the force.

“Hoosegow I should think.” Min mused, setting the phone down. “I’ll have to call up the writers and the executive council but… well there’s still room.”

The cold, calculating look on her face as she went over what she was going to do with her daughter made Juno feel sick, but he didn’t say anything. His hands shook and he wished that he could do something, anything.

What could he do?

Cass had killed her father, there was no other conclusion to draw and what Min did with her family wasn’t any of his business. He should be used to watching this kind of dog eat dog mentality, he had lived in Hyperion long enough to know that no matter what families like the Kanagawas say it's every man, woman, and child out for themselves.

The men picked Cass up as she started to thrash and scream that she didn’t mean too, she didn’t know that the case was open, that she hadn’t opened it and the Mask, the Mask, the Mask.

He swallowed bile that threatened to well up his throat as Min watched her step-daughter like she was a stranger. No affection, no love, no mercy. He’d seen eyes like that before, how often but something about them still made him want to scream.

The doors closed before anyone could think or breathe let alone say a word.

Min pulled out another pile of paperwork like nothing had even happened. Like everything was fine and dandy and something about that was just too much for him and the last piece of another puzzle in his head clicked together.

It wasn’t enough but damn if it wasn’t something.

“None of you are any good at lying you know.” Juno said conversationally. “Not directly anyways. Sure your faces lie and your body language and you sell your viewers this whole thing that is all half-truths and lies but ask you something straight to your face and you either tell the truth or you do everything not to answer.” He leaned in a little. “Croesus might have refused to pay me back then but he was honest about it. Let me know _exactly_ how he felt about me bugging him.”

She set down the pen. “Is any of this relevant Detective Steel? I have a funeral to finish planning.” He should really wait until he was sure she’d paid his invoice before doing this but there wasn’t any stopping the spiel that he’d talked himself into.

“If Croesus told Cass that she was in consideration for next season then she was in it. Wonder how you felt about that? I don’t know exact stats for your shows but I know she brings in the most viewers with her party girl antics. The drinking, shit I met her doing. Cecil’s the one with the run in stand-alone programming that people can’t turn off even if he has the personality of a rabid wolverine.”

Min audibly clicked her tongue at that, but she doesn’t deny it either and if he isn’t mistaken there is a note of actual goddamn delight on Glass’s face.

He doesn’t stop though. “So Croesus had found a new obsession and the interest in the Mask was already starting to wane. You’re down to what, six protesters at the main building now?” She didn’t answer but she was looking at him like she was considering where to hide his body so he figured he was on the right track. “And Croesus wanted to give Cecil’s primetime spot to Cass for an expensive doc-series that would cost more to film then it would make back even if by some miracle she made it with some film festivals.” He smirked. “And he’d already lost you so much money in the past five years.”

She brushed away hair that hadn’t even been in her face and smiled, cold and cutting. “Such imagination detective. You know perhaps we should hire you on as a writer. You’d certainly make more money than you are right now.”

It's true but Juno has signed contracts with the Kanagawas before and conditional employment is as far as he is ever going to let it get.

He liked his soul where it is, thank you very much.

“So you find the schedule for this season, all these years married to him, working with him and there’s no way you can’t get on to his accounts.” Juno continues, his voice getting a little louder. “And you switch things up. Switch the shows out, print off the new copy and sign it. Croesus can’t be bothered to sign everything so you must have learned that, what two, three months after you get married?” He paused for a second. “Nah, ambitious lady like you, you get that down as soon as the engagement is made official. Chuck and delete the old copies. Cass gets screwed over but that’s pretty damn typical. She’d rant and rave you figure, maybe get into a bar brawl but that’s just good ratings and extra publicity but instead she murders Croesus and you’ve got a dramatic Kanagawa Family Special and ‘Cassandra Kanagawa: Hoosegow’s Finest Prisoner’.”

The room is ice and he was breathing heavy. “I bet the ratings are going to be through the fucking roof Min.”

Min clucked her tongue and he swore the temperature of the room dropped another couple of degrees. “You don’t have any proof.” She said and he felt like prey. “If you had even the slightest… well this would be an entirely different conversation.”

“I bet.” The words escaped from his throat like a breath of air.

She’s still composed, still untouched by it all. “Detective Steel, Agent Glass. I am… so sorry that this could not resolve more pleasantly.” She tapped at a tablet. “Your invoice will be in your mailbox right about.. Now.” Min looked up. “You may leave now. You have reached the end of my hospitality I’m afraid.” She looked at Juno. “I’d be careful around dark alleys for a while my dear. I of course understand the… necessity of this but not everyone is as… understanding as I am.”

There is a lot he wanted to do right then. To snarl, to spit, or shout some more but instead he gave her a half-hearted salute. He wondered what charges they’d come up with, what story they would spin for the viewers.

 _Everyone_ was going to tune in for this.

His mouth tasted whiskey bitter when he thought about it. Maybe he will let Rita marathon her soaps in the office for the next couple of weeks, tune out the news cycle until they had new meat to feed on.

Juno turned and left, Agent Glass following close behind him.

“You want that dinner still G...Rex?” Juno offered half-way back to the car and he felt Glass smiling. “Of course my dear detective, what do you have in mind?”

* * *

 Maybe his apartment wasn’t what Agent Glass expected but he rolled with it as Juno takes out a half empty first aid kit and started taking out the bottle of iodine and some bandages while Glass wandered around, poking through his empty fridge and mostly empty cupboards while Juno cleaned the dried blood and disinfects the injuries before wrapping them in gauze.

“Detective, you have an empty ketchup bottle, two eggs, and a measuring cup of rice.” Glass said poking his head out of the kitchen.

Juno looked up. “The rice is for a case. Rita said if you stuck a phone in it that it would start working again even if it had gone under water.” He heard Glass poking at the cup, the sound of dry rice moving against the sides.

He looked in again. “I think that only works if the phone is still in one piece.”

Well, there went that lead.

“I wouldn’t eat the eggs.” Juno warned after a minute of thinking about it. He didn’t even remember when he had last bought eggs. It probably didn’t bode well. “There’s a couple of takeout menus on the side of the fridge.” He rubbed the sore spot on his head. “Probably should have gone out somewhere. There’s a diner on Third that has terrible coffee but the pancakes aren’t half bad and they don’t look twice at a lady no matter what shape he’s in.”

A slow, jazzy number started flowing through the air from the kitchen and Juno guessed that Glass had found the beat up radio he kept to keep from the apartment from getting too quiet.

Glass smiled at him, holding up one of the menus. “I’ll let you pick, I’m sure you know the best places that deliver at this time of night.” He sat down on the couch, crossing one leg over the other. “This is much cozier then any of the restaurants near my hotel anyways.”

There was something in his gaze that made him feel warm. He didn’t want to think about it right now so instead he grabbed the take-out menu, letting his fingers graze against Glass’s and dialled the number, making a quick inquiry about allergies, preference and then ordered two of his usual.

Might be presumptive, but Juno hadn’t met someone yet who disagreed with dan dan noodles.

Once it was ordered he got up, grabbing two tumblers and a bottle of whiskey for them to split after sending off a quick call to Rita. “Might not be your kind of thing.” He said, pouring himself a glass. “Probably used to something that doesn’t double as disinfectant.”

He laughed at that and took a sip and yeah, he did make a face but so did Juno and he was used to the stuff. He kept drinking though, raising it in a toast.

“To a case well worked.”

Juno didn’t reply, staring into the bottom of his tumbler and taking another swig of the liquid. A hand reached over, lightly touching his elbow.

“You don’t agree?” Juno looked up at the tone in Glass’s voice. He looked concerned, the low light of the apartment. “In… well according to my watch you solved a murder involving a notoriously tight-lipped crime family in just under six hours and spent most of that being chased, hog-tied and fighting for our lives and we both came out of it little the worse for wear.” Glass touched Juno’s wrist with a slight smile. “And you stood up to Min Kanagawa in her own office, not a task I think most people would have the nerve to manage.”

He had a way of phrasing it that made it seem like a lot more than it really was. “And I got one of the only half-decent members of the family arrested.” Juno raised his glass up. “Not to mention I’m going to have to watch my back even more then usual because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

The whiskey tasted like fire but Juno could appreciate the burn. He should be satisfied, he knew that had to be what Glass was thinking. They aren’t dead, there was an arrest and Min’s death threats were vague and menacing instead of direct and hell he wasn’t even in the hospital.

But he kept closing his eyes and seeing the look on Cass’s face when she insisted that she had only pushed him, that she hadn’t meant to and the body…

His eyes narrowed as he looked at Glass, concern mixed with a comfortable ease that Juno was sure that he felt everywhere with everyone. Something in his head clicked together. “You must think I’m pretty fucked up for that. Really not the type of lady you want to piss off.”

Juno thought about topping up his drink while Glass sat across from him, looking at him like… he wasn’t even sure what but it made him want to fidget.

“I think you are incredibly brave detective.” Glass’s voice was soft, barely audible over the music still playing from the kitchen.

He snorted. “Go pull another one Glass.” Juno said, finishing his drink.

Glass just shook his head. “No, really. I think it's admirable.” He leaned in closer, close enough that Juno could make out the wings of his eyeliner, how his eyes sparkled and the fading cut on his lip. His cologne was as heady as the whiskey they were drinking and a lot more pleasant. “Standing up against the big… mean world and laughing.”

His lips parted and he was about to lean in when the doorbell rang and Juno shot up to go answer it, cheeks stained red while Glass appeared relatively unaffected on the couch while he paid the delivery guy and came back in.

Juno would have offered the small, beat up dining table for them to eat at but as it was currently covered in work for another case that he hadn’t had time to clean-up they ended up back on the couch with utensils, another glass of cheap whiskey, and the food.

There’s still a kind of tension in the air, an energy that is the same but different from that moment before Rex got one of the Bobs in the neck.

“So, how long are you in town for?” Juno asked slurping at the broth.

Rex smiled, another flash of teeth and Juno wondered for a moment... “Just the night I’m afraid. Such a shame that you can’t take me out sightseeing detective, I’d have loved to see everything this lovely city has to offer but… back off into the big wild world tomorrow morning.” His knee brushed against Juno’s. “The price of the job I’m afraid.”

Something pleasant settled in his stomach at that and it wasn’t just the noodles. “I’ve never left Hyperion before.” Juno said. “Well, unless you count a shitty trip to the Barrens on a field trip but that’s still in the county so I doubt it… counts.” He ran a hand over his hair.

“I’d think you’d like it.” Rex said after a moment. “The long highways, never knowing where you’ll wind up next. It's… freeing.” There’s something in his voice that made Juno believe him, made him picture it. Driving in a car along the interstate, music on the radio and a steady stream of chatter from... Hotel rooms and motel rooms and diners with worse coffee and better pancakes where no one can be bothered to care who you are and where you’ve been as long as you leave a good tip.

He didn’t say that though. Instead he looked up at the ceiling and breathed. “Don’t think I’m that kind of lady Glass.” Juno didn’t think he had it in him to leave Hyperion City. Something’s are in him too deep to ever think he can escape them and the city limits are one of them.

A foot traced it's way along his leg and Rex smiled at him. “Really?” He asked. “Not even for a little while? Just until the heat is off as you might say? The things we could do Juno.” Juno stared into his eyes and that momentary fantasy is in his head in high-def and technicolor.

God if he’s not tempted.

The distance between them shrank, Rex slowly leaning into him  until he can feel his breath mingling with his own, until he can feel his body heat and then all it takes is a single breath, one little movement and the two of them meet.

His lips were like silk and he didn’t want it to stop.

Rex Glass kissed like he was born for it, like he’d been put on this earth for it and it made it very hard for Juno to remember why he should be doing anything else but this.

Then he pulled his lower lip in with his teeth and nipped, sharp and bright and Juno got another idea of what they should be doing and his hand moved up to tangle in his hair, to inhale that cologne until it was all he could taste, until it filled his lungs.

Unfortunately, life, especially his life didn’t work that way.

Slowly Glass pulled away, hand reaching up to touch Juno’s cheek and there’s a glimmer, a glint in his eyes that told Juno exactly what he’s thinking about. “Oh Juno.” He breathed. “The things I could do with you.” He sounded wondering, almost amazed.

Juno leaned his forehead against Glass’s, nose brushing each other. His hand moved away from Glass’s hair. “I just got one question for you.” He said, his voice low.

“Hmm?” Glass leaned in, his teeth working at Juno’s lip in a way that was going to leave it kiss-bruised and feeling it for at least a day.

Juno’s hands wound around Glass’s waist, reaching for his free hand and closing the handcuff around it. “Do you know that you’re under arrest?”

It took Glass a minute to realize what he said, a second of testing the handcuff that Juno has no idea what to attach to. The radiator seemed cliche and it's halfway across the room and keep Glass’s hands near his fucking magic pockets (which probably had more knives in them) seemed like a bad idea. His free hand reached out for Juno and Juno twisted it around. “Darling, is this a part of a role play or something? You could have asked, I’m very flexible you know.”

He said it like a joke but Juno did his damndest to secure his other hand and sighed. “The better question is where the fuck you’re hiding the Mask.”

He had obviously taken it when he had inspected the crime scene, no one had been looking at him and he’d had the excuse of checking it over as evidence but for the life of Juno he couldn’t figure out where Glass had been keeping it for all the running, and the fighting, and the coming back to his apartment.

“I started asking myself questions almost as soon as we got in there.” Juno started. “You were way too eager to get some time by yourself with the body but I put it to the side. No clue where you could put the stupid thing.”

Glass’s is eyeing him like he’s trying to come up with a lie, with something to say to distract him. “There’s a box.” He said instead. “Really, all I was doing was securing the evidence detective. Whatever officers were called in after us are not equipped to handle an artifact like the Mask, especially once it's tasted blood.”

Juno just looked at him, not buying it for a second. “Right, the curse.” He said sarcastically.

He shook his head. “It took me a little while to connect all the dots together. Cass is right. The security her dad had on the case was pretty fool proof. Two blood samples instead of one makes it a lot harder than just pointing a gun at Croesus’s head and having him do the finger poke. I was racking my brain, trying to put together how you could have managed it… and then I found the needles when I was going through your back pockets.”

All night Glass had been insistent about opening doors. All gentlemanly and chivalrous. Juno might be a lady but there was a difference between polite and suspicious and Glass had crossed it somewhere around dashing ahead of Cass to open the door to the trophy room or opening the tomb door.

“Never should have let you go through them I suppose.” He didn’t even look particularly upset. “But if my plan was so brilliant, why on earth am I still in Hyperion City? Coming back to the scene of the crime is so passé.”

“But you almost got caught.” Juno said. “Croesus came in and you managed to get out of sight before he saw you but then he and Cass started fighting and whatever you did to the security cameras wore off. You knew there was no way you could swipe the mask from the crime scene so you came back for it, used the confusion of the investigation to clean up after yourself.”

Glass looked strange for a second and it gave Juno a slight shiver, He was watching him, and he wasn’t sure if he was comfortable with it. Juno coughed. “So when should I expect Min to sic someone on me to get it back?”

“Back? You think they’ll want it back?” Glass actually laughed, the strange look disappearing. “While it was inert it was a trophy piece. Now it's just matter of time before Grimpoteuthis starts whispering to anyone close to his Mask to try and free him. Not to mention, sending someone after either of us means admitting that it was taken in the first place.” His eyes glittered with amusement.

He had no idea why Glass was continuing on with the whole ‘curse’ thing but he did know that the Kanagawas weren’t going to publicly admit that they’d been robbed. Not when they already had to spin the whole ‘murder’ thing into profit.

Glass leaned in towards him, his face all glitter and ice. “Detective Steel, do you really want to do this?” His voice was husky, full of promise. “If you just undo these handcuffs… we could do so many wonderous things. What I could show you…” He trailed off but images flew into Juno’s head and not all of them were of the two of them in bed.

A lot of them were, hell most of them but others…

His lips brushed Juno’s “We could have so much _fun_ together detective~ It’s been so long since I had someone I could trust to watch my back like you did.”

Silk and whispers.

“Come away with me Juno and I will take you anywhere. Everywhere.”

He breathed in and looked him in the eye. “Where’s the Mask?”

Glass let out an amused huff of air. “In the right pocket, you’ll find a gray box.” He said, turning slightly to offer it. “Be careful with it, the box took me forever to get a hold of.” Juno rolled his eyes and reached in. It didn’t take long to find the box, there wasn’t room for much else in the pocket. “Return it if you’d like.” Glass offered. “I suppose that kind of morbidity would be in line with the whole Kanagawa aesthetic.”

“Did Sasha know?” He asked after a few silent minutes. He wasn’t sure how long they had but since he hadn’t called Rita back after using the code word she would send the cops over.

“Agent Wire?” Glass asked, then shook his head. “Not a clue. We only worked together twice and met only briefly. This position has been… excellent for scoping things out even with the effort involved in maintaining it.” He rolled his shoulders slightly, trying to get comfortable with his hands behind his back. “People just invite you right in when they think you’re there to solve their problems. I’ll have to find something new I suppose. Should be fun.” His teeth flashed in a grin and Juno tried not to be flustered by it.

The door buzzed.

Juno sighed, going to let them in. “Officers.” He greeted, barely looking at them as they came inside and picked Glass up off the couch. “Be careful.” He said, putting the box down on the side table. “He’s a slippery one.”

Glass looked over his shoulder at Juno with that same smile. “You know Juno, it would all be so simple. You could leave this city behind I could leave this behind…” What ‘this’ was Juno didn’t know. “It would be a… real adventure.”

Juno swallowed thickly. “Yeah I bet.” He murmured. “Wish I could come.”

“Can’t be that tricky if you caught him Steel.” The older of the two officers sneered at him. “Why am I not surprised to see you spending your night with a thief.”

“Fuck off McCrory.” Juno snarked

“We’ll take it from here Steel,” The other one said, someone new taking Glass by the arm. “Let’s get you down to the station bub…”

Glass was almost out the door when he spoke again. “Farewell Juno, until we meet again.”

McCrory lingered, much to Juno’s displeasure. “I’ll be in in and hour to make my report of what happened. I have a few strings to tie up first. I’m sure between the two of you you can manage to get him down into holding at the 26th.”

He looked at him, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’d get a helmet.” He said. “Kapur has a lead pipe waiting for you after what happened last time.”

Juno’s shoulders set and a remark was burning it's way through his tongue but instead he just nodded sharply and gestured to the door. “Go on, don’t want your new rookie to get all banged up on your watch.” He said and McCrory’s face turned an unfortunate shade of red before he turned and left, slamming the door hard enough that some of the plaster in the ceiling shook free.

Once the dust settled, Juno flopped back down on to the couch. The smell of Glass… or god, that wasn’t even his actual name… the smell of his cologne had embedded itself into the cushions and for a second he considered smooshing his face into it or possibly setting the couch on fire.

It’d air out eventually. It isn’t like he can afford to go in on a new couch right now.

There are a million things he should go do instead of just sitting on the couch. He should call Rita back, let her know that the cops had gotten here and arrested the subject. He should put the box in his safe, make sure that it was secure until he could take it down to whatever station was handling Cass’s arrest.

No way he was trusting it with the 26th.

The confession means it's probably going to be treated as open and shut but the murder weapon might help the case and Glass’s arrest means that they’ll be a better argument for it being a spur of the moment thing, no premeditation might take a decade or two off her sentence.

He should call Sasha and let her know that Glass was a fraud before she found out from the nightly news.. He knew he’d have to get up soon, get those things straightened out and… probably find something protective to put on his head. McCrory probably wasn’t joking about Kapur. Maybe he could call Rita and give her what was left of the takeout.

He didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

Instead of doing anything productive he slumped deeper into the couch, a spring digging into the small of his back. Juno let out of breath and looked to the side, frowning when he sat something sticking out of the couch cushion where Glass had been sitting.

Slowly, Juno reached out, picking up a piece of weirdly thick paper. It was a creamy white and folded up, so barely noticable that if it wasn’t for how his couch slumped he might have missed it entirely.

The thing was; he knew it can’t have been there long.

Just that morning he’d rifled through the couch cushions looking for his keys and it hadn’t been there and his apartment had been locked up tight. Most logical solution was that Glass had slipped it between the couch cushions while he’d been sitting there and Juno hesitated. He should probably put it in the safe with the Mask but instead he slowly unfolded it.

He must have written it behind his back, the writing was surprisingly neat but he believed that he could do anything.

 _'Juno,_   
_If you wish to for one last glimpse of me, check the public access feeds for route 42. Around Merchant Drive but no farther than 8th West Street. Get a good look detective, it may be your last’_

There was a slight pause, a space in the writing that felt like he had waited a while before adding the last part. Juno wet his lips, already reaching for the tablet thing that Rita made him keep in the cupboard so she could show him things like kitten videos and the floor plans of places he had to stake out and the phone.

_'I do hope it's not however. I meant every word I said detective. It will be quite the adventure. I’ll be waiting for you to join me.’_

“Mistah Steel, do you know what time it is?” Rita yawned, sounding exhausted. “You kept me up half the night already, cleaning up footage and checking it and I barely got to watch the Bachelor with Franny…”

She was going to make his life hell for this later. “Rita, I need the road cams for route 42, anything you’ve got between Merchant Drive and 8th West and I need it now.” He hit the button to wake the tablet up, setting it on the counter in the kitchen.

On the other end Rita was grumbling, but he could hear her typing over the speaker. “You better bring me in the good coffee tomorrow boss.” She said, yawning again. “I’m talking Mocha frappucinos from the good place on Delancey Street.” There was another long moment where all he could hear was typing. “Better appreciate this boss.”

The video came up on his screen, and he waved her off with a series of ‘yeah, yeah, yeahs’ He could still hear her snarking and complaining on the other end but it had turned into background noise.

Unlike the footage at Kanagawa Manor the video was black and white, grainy but he saw the squad car parked on the curb. If he squinted he could make out the words ‘Merchant Drive’ on the nearest street sign. Next to the car were two hogtied officers in nothing but their skivvies.

Farther away, a tall figure stood, mostly in shadow from the streetlight as he entered a slick looking car. Juno couldn’t make out details. Convertible, dark color, license plate had to be on the front because he couldn’t see it on the rear bumper but nothing identifiable.

For a second the figure looked back, towards the camera and made a gesture.

It was too far away for Juno to be sure but it looked like he had blown the camera a kiss.

“Rita, Rita you need to get on the line with Sasha now. With the 26th precinct, they’ve got an escaping subject heading up route 42. He’s escaping!”

At the bottom of the note was a signature.

 _'Your better half,_ _  
__Peter Nureyev xxx’_

The car sped off into the distance and without thinking Juno ran over to the box sitting on the table and picked it up.

It was slim, not that big and he was still surprised that it had fit into a pocket but the weight felt _wrong_. Juno slid his hand along the edges as the phone he was still holding to his ear beeped. “Juno? Juno, you can’t call this line.” Sasha sounded frayed and agitated but not all that exhausted despite the early hour. “It's confidential.”

At a touch, the box slid open. At the center was a depression that would have perfectly fit the Mask but it was empty. His heart started to race. “Dammit.” He hissed.

“Juno?’ Sasha said again, sounding familiarly irritated. “If you needed to contact me, you should have had Agent Glass do it.” If he hadn’t said that Sasha didn’t know, this would have proved it to Juno. Sasha was a good liar but she wouldn’t sound so casual if she had any idea of what had just happened. “...Where is he?”

A laugh bubbled up in his throat. “Gone.” He said. “Come back to Hyperion some day and I’ll give you the whole story.” He hit the end button as she started yelling out a demand for an explanation.

His skin was still prickling as he walked back to the tablet, still displaying the video footage from the street cam. There was no sign of him, no inkling that he had been anything more than a mirage on the street.

Juno pulled out another tumbler, another bottle of whiskey and poured.

_FIN_


End file.
